Mineral Wells Area News

The two teams square off today in a fourth-place tiebreaker game

By DAVID MAY | Special to Mineral Wells Area News

An eight-run sixth inning lifted the Mineral Wells Lady Rams to a 12-2 home win Thursday over Graham, forcing a post-season play-in game between the two teams this afternoon in Graford.

The teams are tied for the fourth and final playoff spot in District 6-4A with 4-6 district marks. Graham defeated the Lady Rams earlier in the district slate. The winner of today’s 1 p.m. game will advance while the loser will collect the gear and look ahead to next season.

It was 4-2 in the sixth inning of the regular season finale when the Lady Rams offense exploded for eight runs in the bottom of the sixth to end the game via the run rule.

Third baseman Kynlee Harkins lit the fuse with a lead-off inside-the-park home run on a hard grounder into right field. Aubree Yowell and Hailey McWhorter followed with consecutive singles. Tatum McMinn’s sacrifice to move the runners up resulted in an error and enabled Yowell to score to make it 6-2.

Emery Boswell’s sacrifice also resulted in a Graham error, scoring McWhorter and courtesy runner Scottie Denison to put the Lady Rams up 8-2 still with no outs.

Boswell moved to third on a ground out and scored on Addy Moore’s single. Karli Aaron’s two-out single put runners on the corners. Batting for a second time in the inning, Harkins’ line drive resulted in another Lady Blues error that sent Moore home for a 10-2 lead.

With two on and sensing a chance to end the game, Yowell crushed a line into right field that was misplayed for Graham’s fourth error of the inning. Aaron and Harkins scored and sent the Lady Rams into celebration mode, knowing they had extended their season with a chance to make the playoffs if they can beat Graham again today.

The Lady Blues scored in the top of the first and carried that 1-0 lead into the bottom of the fifth when Mineral Wells’ offense awoke to score four times. McWhorter led the frame off with a double and scored on a McMinn single. Boswell reached on an attempted sacrifice to put two Lady Rams on. Both runners advanced on Savanna Silveus’ sacrifice bunt. 

Moore laid down a squeeze bunt to first that scored courtesy runner Denison and moved Boswell to third. With two outs, Carsyn Presley smashed her own inside-the-park round tripper to put Mineral Wells on top, 4-1. Graham added a run in their half of the sixth.

Aaron and McWhorter each had two of the Lady Rams’ nine hits. Presley and Moore had two RBIs apiece.

McWhorter went the distance in the circle for the Lady Rams, allowing two earned runs on four hits with two strikeouts. Neither pitcher issued a walk.

Graham’s eight errors were costly, yielding seven unearned runs.

Class 4A’s top-ranked and undefeated Brock Lady Eagles (10-0, 25-0-2) won the District 6 title, Brownwood is runner up followed by Stephenville in third.