Softball

Apex rallies in 7th inning to beat Hickory Ridge, win 4A softball title

This year's Apex softball team will be remembered as the Cardiac Cougars after what they pulled off on Saturday.
Posted 2023-06-03T23:42:42+00:00 - Updated 2023-06-04T01:04:15+00:00

This year’s Apex softball team will be remembered as the Cardiac Cougars after what they pulled off on Saturday.

Following a come-from-behind Game 2 victory earlier in the day, Apex claimed the N.C. High School Athletic Association 4A state championship with an 8-5 victory over Hickory Ridge in Game 3 at Duke’s softball stadium. Down to their final three outs and down three runs, the Cougars posted six runs in the top of the seventh, capitalizing on multiple Hickory Ridge fielding errors to stage a comeback for the ages.

Apex (22-8), coached by Adam Renzi, is the first Wake County public school to win an NCHSAA softball state championship. Apex junior pitcher Alyssa Kaufman pitched 15 innings and allowed just seven runs between the two games on Saturday. The junior didn’t start Game 2 but entered as a reliever in the first inning of that game. From then on, the Cougars rode her arm. For that, she earned most valuable player honors.

“What you saw today is why I’m involved in this game,” Renzi said. “Whether we win or lose really was irrelevant because of the way they fought back in both games. I’m just so proud of what they did today.”

Apex began its seventh-inning rally with a pair of singles from leadoff hitter Leah Kendall and shortstop Kaleigh Ayscue to put runners on the corners with nobody out. Hickory Ridge catcher Tori Kirkpatrick then dropped a pop-up right in front of home plate, loading the bases with no outs.

A well-hit ball by third baseman Bailey Sigmon resulted in an error by Hickory Ridge shortstop Grace Bechtol, plating two runs to make it 5-4. After Hickory Ridge pitcher Kristyn Embler hit a batter to load the bases again with one out, the Ragin’ Bulls made a pitching change, turning to Anna Dew, their ace who pitched the entirety of the first two games of the series.

Dew struck out Kaufman, as Apex was then down to its final out. But then Hailey Spielman provided the game-winning hit with a single to right field that led to a fielding error – Hickory Ridge’s fourth of the game and seventh of the day – and Apex took a 7-5 lead. Later in the inning, the Cougars added one more run on a dropped third strike.

Kaufman then closed the door on Hickory Ridge (27-4) with a 1-2-3 bottom of the seventh, capping an impressive day of pitching by the junior.

“My defense has my back,” Kaufman said. “I go through each pitch hard and think, ‘Okay, my defense has my back, I’m good. If they hit it, it’s fine. We got this.’”

Earlier in the day, Apex forced a Game 3 with Ayscue’s two-run walk-off homer in the eighth inning of Game 2, a game in which Apex trailed 4-0 until the fourth inning.

The momentum Apex created from that comeback win carried over into the early portions of Game 3. Facing a different pitcher for the first time this weekend in Hickory Ridge’s Embler, Apex took a 2-0 lead in the first on a sacrifice bunt by Sigmon and a single from center fielder Analiza Whittlesey that was just out of reach of Hickory Ridge third baseman Emma Shumaker.

But like it did in Game 2, Hickory Ridge posted four runs during its first chance to bat, faring much better against Kaufman early on than it did a couple of hours earlier. Extra-base hits by Kirkpatrick (double) and Dew (triple) and a single by center fielder Chloe Woodward helped the Ragin’ Bulls take a 4-2 lead after one.

After strong starts by both offenses in the first, Embler and Kaufman started to settle in. Hickory Ridge’s Embler, a sophomore, was making just her second start at pitcher this season. Embler’s most impressive moment came in the second inning, as she pitched around a bases-loaded jam with nobody out, getting a strikeout, a force out and a ground out.

Kaufman was coming off an impressive relief outing in Game 2 in which she replaced Madeline Degnan in the first and allowed just two runs over eight innings of work.

Hickory Ridge added to its lead in the third, with Kirkpatrick once again involved. The Hickory Ridge catcher singled, later advanced to second and then scored on a bloop single to right field by Shumaker to make it a 5-2 game.

From there, both starting pitchers continued to excel with neither team scoring from the fourth through the sixth.

Hickory Ridge appeared to be in great shape to claim its first-ever softball state title, but that’s when Apex mounted its second big rally of the day.

On a day where a two-game series win for Hickory Ridge at times looked like the likeliest outcome, Apex is now celebrating a historic day of comebacks – and a Wake County first.

“It just feels amazing,” Ayscue said. “I just love this team so much, and I just would not want to do it with anybody else.”

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