Whitmire falls at home to Union County on softball Senior Night

WHITMIRE, S.C. — The Lady Wolverines had a rough evening on the diamond as they fell on Senior Night. Whitmire(11-5, 5-2 region 1-A) loses 17-0 to Union County(14-5, 4-0 region) on Wednesday, April 23rd at home.

Whitmire was coming off a hard fought comeback on Tuesday, April 22nd that ended with a walk-off hit in their 9-8 win against Ware Shoals. The Lady Wolverines returned to the diamond on the second night of a back-to-back home stand, but this time against the Lady Yellow Jackets.

The large home crowd at Whitmire’s softball field stood to applaud the lone two seniors on the roster, Cierra Jones and Makenna Moss-Jenkins. The two help build the program and led them to their first District Championship since 2004 on last season.

“I would like to thank these two seniors for everything they have accomplished and contributed to the Wolverine softball program,” said Wolverines head coach Andrew Campbell. “I look forward to watching them grow and take their next steps as they prepare to go to college. Thank you both!”

Sophomore Raylin Vicars got the start in the circle for Whitmire. It was competitive game through the five innings, but things got out of hand in the sixth. The visiting Yellow Jackets got on the board first in the second inning. Then, they added two more runs in the third inning and three runs in the fourth inning. They went into the bottom half of the fourth inning with a 6-0 lead.

Whitmire had a rough night at the plate and just couldn’t seem to get anything going. They finally got a spark at the bottom of the fourth inning with hits from sophomores Chloe Hix and Vicars. Unfortunately, the lady Wolverines couldn’t find a way to drive those runs in for scores and both were left stranded on base.

Vicars night ended in the circle after four innings. The sophomore sensation allowed six hits, had four strikeouts and six runs were scored. Holly Robertson took over in the circle for Vicars at the top of the fifth inning. The eighth grader had a strong start in the fifth inning by retiring three of the four batters she faced in the inning. It was much different story in the sixth inning as Robertson struggled with the hot bats of Union County.

The visiting Yellow Jackets kept getting hit after hit and scoring run after run. They quickly figured out Robertson and didn’t take their foots off the gas. They scored 11 runs in the inning which included a grand slam to extend their lead to 17-0 before the Wolverines made a pitching change.

Whitmire was able to get out of the inning, but Union County had already did their damage to put them away.

“We are still working to finish second in the region because we can’t finish first with Dixie winning the region. Last night was big and help us stay up. We have four or five region games left. We have a young team with nine girls that start that are below the tenth grade. One senior starts and tonight was Senior Night where we faced a good Union County team that is playing for a region championship on Monday in 3A,” said Campbell.

He continued, “I am trying to get to realize that you have turn the page onto the next day. That’s been our motto all year is to turn the page and you can’t live off of yesterday’s success. We are going to learn from it and this team did the same thing to us last year then we went on to make a deep run in the playoffs. We lost 18-0 and it was like it flipped a switch for us and we went on a run. We have to come back to work tomorrow and get ready for two game son Friday. It’s been a thrilling two days. We would love to play better but we kept fighting and that’s the most important thing.”

Whitmire will return to action on Friday, April 25th for a road region doubleheader against McCormick.