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The emotions were running high and the tears were flowing as the Dupo Lady Tigers accepted their 4th place trophy. The tears were both of joy and sadness; joy of winning the first ever state trophy in in Dupo’s history in girls softball, and sadness at not bringing home the State Championship. The Lady Tigers had a great season finishing 24-8 and as I said in a previous article, brought excitement and pride back into the school and community.
Both the loss to Cobden 5-1 on Friday and the loss to Downs 2-1 today were hard fought games that just came up short. In the 7th inning the Tiger’s gave us a glimmer of hope by putting two on with only one out, but failed to plate those base runners. They out hit the Lady Vikings 6-5, but could not get the clutch hit when needed. The pitchers Tanna Hinthorne for the Lady Vikings and Ashley Meagher for the Lady Tigers pitch brilliantly, both with seven strikeouts and giving up hits sparingly. The hardest hit ball of the day was by Megan Bethea of Dupo who tripled down the right-field line, and later scored when Kelci Hofstetter singled up the middle.
Even though there was a clear winner of the State finals with defending champions Cobden winning once again, the four teams were evenly matched. The pitching was outstanding with two of the final games going into overtime, with Alexis vs. Downs going 11 innings and the state championship game of Alexis vs. Cobden going 19 innings.
Overall it felt good to be a Tiger again either present or as an Alumni, and proud of it! Thanks Lady Tiger’s for bringing us this joy and pride, it will not be soon forgotten.
I have various links below for you to follow of the play-by-play of each game, stats of the year, previous articles, and highlight photo’s of the two games. On Monday their will be available at various locations around town a special print version of the Lady Tigers accomplishments this year. It is surely to be a collector’s item, so get your copy.
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