GDW Analysis:
DANVILLE: Good Hope Lady Raiders accomplished what they set out for a goal on Tuesday in a 4A, Area 13 game with the Danville Lady Hawks.
Good Hope came out as a winner by the final of 8 to 4. The Lady Raiders have a 4 & 1 record in the area and are 2 games ahead of Danville, West Morgan and East Lawrence.
These three are 2 & 3. Danville visits Good Hope Thursday while West Morgan and East Lawrence have to face one another to finish up the 6 game schedule for Area 13 softball.
Good Hope never trailed in getting a 3 to 0 lead in the 2nd, leading 5 to 0 after the 3rd and 6 to 0 heading into the bottom of the 5th.
Brooklyn Lambert, Molly O'Neal and Lizzy Steed delivered runs in their plate appearance.
An RBI single from Molly Benefield and an RBI single from Natalie Miller in the 3rd sent the Cullman County champion to a 5 run advantage.
Miller made it 6 to 0 on a single in the 5th scoring Benefield.
Benefield, pitching for the Lady Raiders, was good through the first 3 innings, allowing 1 hit with 2 strikeouts and getting help by Lambert with a fine catch in rightfield to end the Danville threat.
The righthander then started to have control issues. She allowed a double and walked two to load the bases. A strikeout and a flyout allowed her to escape with Danville still scoreless.
That changed in the 5th with three runs scoring for the Lady Hawks. Three walks were issued with one coming with the bases loaded to send home a run.
A ground out to Miller at 3rd ended the frame with Danville back in striking distance, down 6 to 3.
Good Hope had a two out single in the 6th by Haley Lay to score who was safe on a fielding error at 1st base.
Leading 7 to 4 when hitting in the 7th, the Lady Raiders applied an insurance run on Steed's two out double that brought in Lambert.
Benefield managed to stop Danville in the final inning on a pair of ground outs to Kylee Smith at short and a strikeout.
Benefield finished with a complete game performance, yielding 6 hits, 4 runs, 6 strikeouts.
Her problem was base on balls. Benefield surrendered 8 walks.
The game was completed in 1 hour, 58 minutes, ending at 6:25 p.m. under a pleasant day in Morgan County.
Good Hope is unofficially 18-8-1 on the season.
Photo of Good Hope softball coach Tim Tucker (left), Danville coach Sydnee Fitzgerald and the umpires in pregame meeting before Tuesday's 4A, Area 13 contest at Danville.
GDW photo by Johnny Thornton.
