One wild finish: Lugoff-Elgin softball a win away from first state championship

There was a little pause in Lugoff-Elgin softball designated player Camryn Jordan’s run.

Her coach, Savannah Starling, wanted her to run right through third and keep going in the bottom of the seventh inning of a tied Game 1 of the Class 4A state championship series against Darlington. But Jordan rounded third and, perhaps on instinct more than anything, slowed up to look at the play happening at first.

“I saw Starling doing the ‘Go! Go!’ and I saw the ball in the other dugout, and I was like, ‘I gotta go,” Jordan said.

And go she did, taking advantage of an overthrown ball to first to walk off with a 4-3 win and put her team one win away from the first title in program history. Game two of the best-of-three series is set for Thursday.

On a day where five-and-aahalf scoreless innings gave way to a wild finish, Sydney Branham put the final ball in play with runners on first and second.

The Falcons (24-5) got the out at first, but they couldn’t complete the double play or prevent the sophomore from coming home.

“I just knew that I had to put the ball in play,” Branham said. “I knew that my team was depending on me to do that.

“Right now, in the moment, I’m not processing yet.”

The play capped what had been a wild few innings and a game where the host Demons (27-4) were fighting an uphill battle.

Darlington put eight runners on base in the first five innings but couldn’t break through against Lugoff pitcher Emma Spradley (12-1). Meanwhile, her team didn’t manage a hit against Falcons pitcher Madie Andrews through the first five.

On a night where multiple players played vital roles for the Demons, leadoff hitter Emily Vinson got things going. She managed a two-out double in the sixth, and after a nine-pitch walk, Spradley helped her own cause, launching a ball that clanged off a roof beyond the left field fence.

But Darlington rallied, with three hits and a pair of free baserunners in the top of the seventh, stranding two on second and third. The momentum of the rally faltered, as a pair of errors to start the next frame set up the walk-off.

“In these three-game series, sometimes it’s a good thing to take a close loss knowing that you out-hit your opponent,” Darlington coach Tim Wiley said. “You just didn’t get the runs in. So sometimes it plays in your favor.”

Wiley has led the Falcons to four state finals, including a title in 2008. Starling, who played at Lugoff-Elgin and graduated in 2011, has her team in its first finals appearance since 1990 and second all-time.

The 2016 University of South Carolina graduate said she told her team to never relax and to expect the kind of performance Darlington delivered. And she expected that whoever faltered first would find itself down in the series.

In the end, her team got big hits, plays, runs from all over — and like Jordan rounding third, they’ve got one more potential stop as they aim to round toward history.

“I always believe that they’re resilient,” Starling said. “I always believe that they can come back, no matter what the situation is, but just seeing how they string together, I learned, new leaders emerge every day or every time we get a situation like this, a different kid in my lineup produces.

“It’s never the same kid up to bat when we get our backs up against the wall.”

WP: Emma Spradley LP: Madie Andrews Hitters: D: Alayna Williamson 1-3 2 RBI; Ashton Goodwin 1-4 RBI; Ary McPhail 2-2. LE: Emma Spradley 1-3 HR, 3 RBI

This story was originally published June 1, 2021 at 9:57 PM.