Andrew Giermak

King’s Fork walked their way past Sarah Saunders and the Lady Cavaliers Tuesday afternoon at Lakeland as despite managing only three hits, the Lady Bulldogs won their third straight Southeastern District softball contest, 5-2.

After Saunders and KF starting pitcher, Rachel Bailor, traded scoreless first innings, at the plate, Bailor drew a leadoff walk to start the top of the second.

Tina Parker followed with a hit into right field that skipped past Savannah Nickols and went to the fence, Bailor and Parker came all the way around to score.

Saunders worked around a leadoff walk to start the third with a strikeout, a nice sliding catch in leftfield by Courtney Parmeter and a groundout to Shelby Pendleton at third.

Lakeland then got on the board in the bottom of the third when Parmeter knocked in Amy Barnes with a two-out single.

In a repeat of the second inning, the KF fourth started with a leadoff walk by Bailor and Parker then reaching first on a hit by pitch.

A sacrifice bunt by Margaret Farris and a sacrifice fly to center by Whitney Witt scored Bailor and made it 3-1 KF.

The Lady Cavs responded in the bottom of the fourth with Saunders hustling to reach first on a dropped third strike.

Saunders then stole second and was driven in on a two-out single by Wendy White.

The Lady Bulldogs again would capitalize on their collective good eye in the top of the sixth.

Parker started the inning with a walk and after a strikeout, Witt walked.

Gillian Giarrizzo singled on a grounder up the middle, bringing in Parker; and Mindy Byrd’s groundout to short brought in Witt, making it 5-2 KF.

After giving up runs in the third and fourth, Bailor allowed only two base runners the rest of the game.

Bailor ended up with nine strikeouts, gave up seven Lady Cavalier hits, but countered that by giving up no walks.

Saunders surrendered seven walks and two hit-batters to the Lady Bulldogs, from the KF second inning on, the Lady Bulldogs began each inning with a leadoff base runner either by walk or HBP.

The Lady Bulldogs (3-5, 3-5) go to Hickory Friday night and the Lady Cavaliers (3-6, 1-6) traveled to Landstown Wednesday and will host Nansemond River Friday.

Lakeland 16, King’s Fork 1

On the diamond at Lakeland, the Cavaliers (7-5, 4-4) easily dismissed the Bulldogs (1-11, 0-8) for the second time in a week.

This time in a district game, Lakeland got home runs from Nolan Robertson, Daniel Cross and Grey Pope to add up to more than enough offense on the day in a 16-1 win in five innings.

Lakeland scored three runs in the first, with a two-RBI single by Potter and an RBI double by Chad Cross doing the damage; and four more in the second with Michael Espinosa and Pope getting the run-scoring hits in the inning.

The Bulldogs got back-to-back doubles by Chase White and Joey Powell to score their only run of the afternoon in the third.

Robertson’s homer, his first of the season, began the Lakeland scoring in the bottom of the third.

Nine more Cavs would hit after Robertson in the inning, adding up to a 12-1 lead after three.

Cross and Pope capped off the offensive display for the Cavs in the fourth, launching back-to-back home runs, for each it was their second homer of the season.

Pope took care of the pitching duties for Lakeland, giving up five hits and striking out six Bulldogs.

At the plate, Pope was on base four times and totaled four runs scored and three RBI.