By Titus Mohler
Correspondent

The Nansemond-Suffolk Academy softball team defeated Cape Henry Collegiate 8-1 in Thursday’s semi-final game to advance to Friday’s TCIS championship.

Morgan Daughtry pitched all seven innings, throwing nine strikeouts and also getting two RBIs as a hitter. Fellow seniors Brooke Starling and Nicole Turner led the team with three hits apiece.

The earlier, relatively close game against Cape Henry this season served as a motivator. This year’s Lady Saints (19-1) hold themselves to such a high standard that a three-run margin of victory against a team they feel they can beat is not a cause for celebration.

“Well, we only beat (Cape Henry) 4-1 last time, so that’s not good for us,” Starling said. “So we just wanted to make sure that that didn’t happen again, so we had to make sure we stayed up and hit the ball and scored more runs.”

Senior second baseman Morgan Lokie felt that the quick start at bat was key.

“We came out strong hitting-wise,” she said. “We hit the ball in the first inning, and I think when we score in the first inning, it kind of gets our motivation up the rest of the game.”

Head coach Kim Aston and Lokie described how the scoring got started.

“We bunted the first three at-bats and got runners on base,” Aston said.

“Macy (Mears) got on off a bunt to start off with,” Lokie said, “and then (Brooke) bunted her around, and then they made a couple of errors, and then we just started scoring, and I think it kind of picked up hit after hit after that.”

Aston said she had confidence in the Lady Saints’ ability to force errors from the Cape Henry defense.

“They decided to hold the ball and keep the run from scoring, instead of getting an out at first and so we loaded up the bases, and then Morgan Daughtry hit a double in the first inning to score three runs,” Aston said. “So, that pretty much at that point, for us, kind of broke open the floodgate to (put) up seven runs, I think, in the first two innings.”

NSA has one loss this season, and it came against Greenbrier Christian Academy. The Lady Saints were set to attempt to avenge their loss and play for the TCIS championship Friday evening against the Lady Gators. Check Sunday’s edition of the Suffolk News-Herald for the results of that game.