EV softball team ends season with quarterfinal tourney loss

English Valleys spotted Tri-County a 4-0 lead and couldn’t make up the deficit, suffering a season-ending 5-3 loss in a Class 1A Region 8 softball tournament quarterfinal Wednesday, July 5, at North English.

The Bears and Trojans split games during the regular season, Tri-County winning 7-6 on May 22 and English Valleys prevailing less than three weeks ago on June 16, 10-7.

Despite coming into the game on a roll, winning nine of their last 10 games, the Bears struggled early, giving up one run in the first inning and three more in the third on a homer by Delanie Little to fall behind 4-0.

English Valleys got two of those runs back in the fifth when Addy Westfall led off the inning with a single and scored on two-run homer by Kennedy Axmear. It was Axmear’s 11th dinger of the year, breaking her own single-season school record of 10 set last year, and the 29th of her career surpassing Audrey Grove’s previous record of 28.

Axmear then singled in the sixth inning to drive in Aubrey Achenbach, who had walked, to pull the Bears within 4-3, but the rally stopped there. Tri-County pushed across another run in the top half of the seventh inning to go up 5-3, and then retired English Valleys one-two-three in the bottom of the inning.

The Trojans out hit the Bears 8-6 and improved their record to 12-9 to advance to Friday’s semifinals against Twin Cedars, which the Sabers won, 5-4. The Bears bowed out 16-7, going 12-4 in the South Iowa Cedar League to finish second behind three-time defending champion Sigourney (16-0).

English Valleys loses just one senior — Westfall, who started all 23 games, batted .392 and led the Bears in runs scored with 33.

Axmear, a junior, ranked first on the team in batting average (. 567), slugging percentage (1.209), home runs (11), doubles (10) and RBI (40). She also had a 16-6 pitching record with a 2.35 ERA and 156 strikeouts in 131 innings.