Lady Chargers knocked out of postseason picture with

8-2

loss to Tivy Antlers

Boerne Champion’s playoff chances came down to last week’s regular-season softball finale with Kerrville Tivy.

Thursday’s winner claimed the final spot up for grabs in 26-5A, while the other was on the outside looking in when the playoffs start this week.

Despite being on the road, Kerrville Tivy put together a solid performance in the make-or-break game and defeated the Lady Chargers, 8-2 Champion ends the year at 6-10 in district and 8-11 overall.

Chargers coach Sara Cammer said she was proud of her young team for going into the last game of the year with a chance at the postseason.

“Situations like this will be a huge learning experience for the younger girls in the team,” she said. Hopefully they use this to improve and make that playoff run next year.”

Cammer said they just couldn’t get going when they needed to on Thursday.

“Going into the game I told the girls they have to keep the energy all seven innings and we just couldn’t ever really gain the momentum,” she said. “I’m not sure it was nerves, I think there were a lot of factors going into the game and we didn’t adjust when we needed to.”

Tivy never trailed in the game and scored a run in the first and added 2 in the third for the 3-0 lead before the Chargers would score.

In the bottom of the third, Hannah Perez tripled to score Anna Hurst and it was 3-1, but the Lady Antlers fired back with single runs in the fourth and fifth frames to build a 5-1 advantage.

Champion tallied its other run in the game with two outs in the bottom of the sixth. A couple of Tivy errors allowed the Chargers to cut into the lead at 5-2.

In the top of the seventh, the Lady Antlers blew the game open with a bases-clearing triple from Kyra Wheatfall to bump the lead to 8-2.

The Chargers still had one last chance in the bottom of the seventh and Torin Tucker singled to reach base with one out, but the Antlers turned a double play to end it.

Champion finished with 4 hits, two singles from Tucker, the triple from Perez and a single from Abby Brehmer.

Mylie Park threw 162 pitches in the game and was relieved by Hurst in the seventh.

Thursday was also Senior Night, for more on that, look in this weekend’s Boerne Star.