A walk-off home run might have been less painful for North Forney.
Kenzie Dickson drew a bases-loaded walk with two outs in the bottom of the seventh Thursday night at the Lady Tigers' Field to give Texas High a 1-0 victory, and one-game advantage in its Class 5A best-of-three bi-district softball playoff series with the Lady Falcons.
The series resumes at 7 tonight on North Forney's home field. If a third game is necessary it will be played Saturday at Northeast Texas Community College in Mount Pleasant, with first pitch scheduled at noon. The winner of this series advances to next week's area round to face Frisco Centennial or Prosper.
"From a spectator's point of view, you can't get any better than that," THS coach Robbie Hatfield said after the game. "You had two good pitchers locked up, two good defenses locked up, it was special. I was real proud of (winning pitcher) Mabry (Smith), she was hitting her spots tonight.
"Somebody had to lose, and I was sure glad that it was us that won tonight. You hate it for their little pitcher (Andrea Decareau) because she pitched a great game, but then on the other hand, she missed her spots there at the end."
Smith, a sophomore right-hander, improves to 19-3 this season and is drawing close to 300 strikeouts on the season, her coach added.
Scoring opportunities were rare to say the least in this game.
North Forney (17-14) got its second batter (Amber Busby) of the game on with a free pass. She stole second on the next pitch, but was stranded after a grounder to third and Smith's second of 12 strikeouts.
The only other Falcon to reach second was Decareau, who doubled off the left-field fence in the fifth with two outs. Smith struck out the next batter on four pitches.
Texas High (25-5), the District 16-5a co-champion and top seed in the playoffs, had scoring opportunities in the fifth and sixth.
Kaitlyn Cross walked on four pitches and was sacrificed to second by Raegan Erskine. Cross stayed at second on a grounder to the pitcher's circle.
That's when Kylee Spriggs' hard grounder to second was bobbled, and Cross raced around third and headed home. Second baseman Brooke Taylor fired a strike to catcher Alissa Gaidos, who tagged Cross out.
Freshman Bailey Groom singled to center with one out in the sixth and advanced to second on a wild pickoff attempt by the catcher. Decareau retired the next two on a popup to the catcher and her seventh strikeout of the game.
Hatfield indicated Smith is the likely pitcher for THS tonight, but was waiting until gametime to make a decision because North Forney was expected to pitch junior Amanda Jones or freshman Kaitlyn Molpus.
North Forney 000 000 0 0 2 2
Texas High 000 000 1 1 4 0
Two outs in 7th when game ended.
Andrea Decarceau and Alissa Gaidos; Mabry Smith and Kylee Spriggs. WP-Smith (19-3); LP-Decarceau.