Coming into Thursday night action, it had been a really tough go of it for the Dawson Springs Lady Panther softball team. First off, there was the emotion of the loss of a former classmate and former Dawson Springs athlete over the past week.
Of course, the whole country knows the story of the Dawson Springs community as it struggles to rebuild in wake of the tornado of December 2021 that nearly wiped the entire community off the map. And due to the damage from that devastating twister, the Lady Panthers still do not have a softball field to call their home in southern Hopkins County.
Heck, the game at Hopkinsville Thursday night was Dawson Springs’ home game even though the Lady Panthers were the team that had to load up on a bus to make the trip over.
And then there was that little matter of ‘the streak’, and it was no ordinary one at that. Heading into the game with the Lady Tigers Thursday night, the Dawson Springs Lady Panthers had lost 81 games in a row, that’s right 81. Even more than that, of those 81 losses not a single one of those was a full game as the Lady Panthers had been run-ruled in each.
Eighty-one games, that goes back before most of us had heard the terms COVID, coronavirus, lockdown, social distancing, and masking up. The last Dawson Springs win had been in May of 2019 when the Lady Panthers knocked off University Heights 11-9.
But let the word be spread far and wide, ‘the streak’ is over.
Dawson Springs scored in every at-bat and got enough stops when they needed to pick up a 19-9 5-inning home on the road win over Hopkinsville. The Lady Tigers’ pitching struggles were a huge story in the game as two Hopkinsville pitchers combined to give up 23 walks in the game.
The Lady Panthers put 19 runs on the board despite having only three hits in the game. Maddie Back, Sophia Johnson, and Kyleigh Vinson had the hits for Dawson Springs. Back, Vinson, and Gracyln Haynes, all seniors, are the only players on the current roster who were around the last time the Lady Panthers won a game. All were 7th graders on the team that beat UHA back in 2019. Haynes went the distance in the circle to pick up the win.
Hopkinsville hit the ball well enough to win the game. The Lady Tigers scored their 9 runs on 10 hits and scored in every at-bat but the top of the third.
The game was tied 8-8 going into the bottom of the fourth inning. Dawson Springs put 10 runs on the board in the bottom of the 4th to run the lead out to 18-8. Hopkinsville held on for a little longer scoring a run in the top of the 5th, but this night was not going to get away from the Lady Panthers as they ‘walked’ it off with a bases-loaded walk with no outs in the bottom half of the inning.
Elizabeth Smith ended up 3-4 for Hopkinsville with two doubles, 3 RBIs, and two runs scored. Danaja Wheeler, Elaina Chaudoin, and Malaih Miller added two hits each.
After the game, Dawson Springs head coach Mickey Blue was very emotional speaking about what the community and the players had been through over the past three years and the past couple of weeks.
The two team are set to play again on May 7 at Hopkinsville High School on what will be senior night for the Lady Tigers.
