Aynor softball gets offense going to force winner-take-all

Shelby Cox lit the fuse.

Hannah Seaver set off the fireworks.

Led by three total home runs from the two seniors, Aynor defeated Andrew Jackson 8-5 Wednesday at home to force a winner-take-all game three for the Class AA state softball championship.

The victory was a return to the norm for the Blue Jackets’ high-scoring offense that was present most of this season before a brief hiatus the last two times they played. Those three swings of the bat from Cox and Seaver matched the run production the team had in a 3-2 victory over Johnsonville in the district finals and a 4-3 loss to the Volunteers in the state finals opener combined.

“The last two games we have not hit the ball like we have all year,” coach Sandie Jones said before recalling Cox’s solo shot on the first pitch of the bottom of the first inning. “Our senior is up to bat, and I feel like if she leads off even with just a hit, put the ball in play, the rest of the team will follow. That right there, I felt like great things were going to happen.”

Two innings later, the rest of the offense followed.

With the bases loaded, Seaver took an outside pitch from fellow Class AA All-State selection Hannah Cobb and caught just enough of it to send it off the top of the right-field wall. Layna Johnson’s RBI single brought home another run, and a throwing error scored Johnson on the next batter.

In the fifth inning, Seaver’s solo bomb to left field cleared a row of cars beyond the fence. By that point, the catcher had also thrown out two Volunteers attempting to steal second. The influx of adrenaline was something she credited back to her teammate.

“One person can hit the ball and it starts the train for the rest of us,” Seaver said. “It spins over to the entire team. … It spilled over to the rest of the game. That’s what we’re used to and have done all year long.”

Said Cox: “We got our team back.”

The Volunteers scored their first run in the fifth and then added four in the sixth when they batted around. But the powered-up Blue Jackets had already done plenty of damage to tie the best-of-three series at a game apiece.

The teams will meet at 6:30 p.m. Friday at South Florence High School to determine who wins the outright title. Andrew Jackson will be going after its third title – all since 2006 – while Aynor will be gunning for its second. The Blue Jackets, after four runner-up finishes in the late 1980s, won their only championship in 1990 while still a member of Class A.

Jones’ team hopes it can continue the outburst that led to its most recent victory, and many of the other crucial ones earlier in the year that helped establish Aynor as one of the best teams in the state.

The confidence from Wednesday won’t hurt.

“We took what was ours in front of us,” Cox said. “And we made it count.”

This story was originally published May 20, 2015 at 9:29 PM with the headline "Aynor softball gets offense going to force winner-take-all."