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Lady Broncos cap undefeated district run
By Andrew Snyder, asnyder@starlocalnews.com
GARLAND—McKinney Boyd's softball team entered the year with a district championship on the mind and did its aspirations one better by completing an undefeated run on Friday with an 18-1 win over North Garland.
“That was definitely a goal [to be undefeated],” said Maureen Fritz, Boyd head coach. “It's huge. To me, it's been fun to finally make a change in the program. It's been a great year.”
The Lady Broncos had nine consecutive hits and nearly batted around twice, sending 17 players to the plate, in a 12-run third inning against North Garland that helped end the game prematurely. They added four more runs in the fourth to pull ahead by the 15-run lead needed to end the game via run-rule after at least three innings.
Boyd will be looking for that spirit of one-upmanship to continue. After winning their first playoff series but no more last year, the Lady Broncos will be after a deeper run this time around, as spinning their dominant district performance into something more is their new goal.
“We're going to focus one series at a time,” Fritz said. “The goal is definitely state. That's the mission and ultimate goal. The girls believe it and are extremely confident.”
The Lady Broncos established themselves as the class of 10-5A by averaging just under 10 runs per game, scoring 139 total, and giving up six runs total during district. They had nine shutouts and allowed more than one run to just one opponent: Rowlett, who finished in second place, in a 4-2 win.
But while it was mostly smooth sailing for the Lady Broncos, they ran into their toughest test since the start of district in a 1-0 win over Garland at home on Tuesday. After bashing their way through the rest of their opponents, they came up with just two hits against the Lady Owls and relied on a complete-game shutout from Erin Riding to keep their undefeated run alive.
“Those [fans] that hadn't been out to see us, I think the girls got themselves to the point where they were too excited to show them how awesome their hitting and base running was that we fell short a little bit,” Fritz said. “What they did was put pressure on themselves, and it was good for them to do that prior to getting into the playoffs so we can talk about it and work through what we can do differently in a situation like that.”
Boyd had faced the same pitcher in an earlier away game against Garland and tagged her with 16 hits and 11 runs. Whatever the reason for the sluggish offensive showing the second time around, the Lady Broncos proved by beating Garland they could win out in tightly-contested games – a necessary attribute for a deep playoff run.
The offense didn't stay slumping for long though, as the Lady Broncos returned to close out their undefeated run with a 17-hit outburst against North Garland. Every member of the starting lineup had a hit and most had more than one. Carly Nicklas went 3-for-4 with a single and two doubles to drive in four runs and rank as the team's most productive hitter.
The Lady Broncos will open the playoffs against Richardson. They shouldn't expect much of a step-up in competition from what they saw during district though, as Richardson lost to North Garland, 9-8, in the first game of the season.
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