With the regular season winding down, the Monticello Lady Billies played their final home conference game on Friday, April 21, hosting the Crossett Lady Eagles.
Coming into the contest, the Lady Billies were sitting at the top of the 4A-8 Conference standings with a half game lead over the Stuttgart Lady Ricebirds.
Crossett came into the contest in fourth in the standings.
Alaina Lyle would enter the circle for the Lady Billies on Senior Night and would begin the contest by getting three consecutive outs in the inning on a fly out and two ground outs.
With one out in the bottom of the first inning, Monticello would get their only baserunner of the inning after Addi Frazer would reach on an error.
The Lady Eagles would get out of the inning after Lyle hit it to the pitcher who made the catch and threw to first to complete the double play.
Lyle would return to the circle to sit the Lady Eagles down in order once more, this time on three consecutive strikeouts.
Audrey Howard would lead off for the Lady Billies in the bottom of the second inning reaching first on an error. Kylie Lane would move Howard to third on a double to center field.
After the first out, Madeline Stanley loaded the bases on a walk, but Crossett would record the next two outs to end the inning with Monticello stranding all runners on the base paths.
Lyle would strikeout the first Crossett batter to begin the third inning and would get the next two to ground out to end the inning.
Monticello would get on the board in the bottom of the third inning after Kate Morgan led off the inning being hit by a pitch followed by Frazer reaching on an error. Lyle would record the first out of the inning on a sacrifice fly that scored Kate Morgan followed by a single by Howard to put runners at the corners.
Lane would hit into a fielder’s choice that scored Frazer to give the Lady Billies a 2-0 lead.
Crossett’s only hit in the contest would come in the top of the fourth inning on a lead off double, but Lyle would strikeout the next two batters and get the final batter to ground out to get out of the inning.
Crossett would get the first two Monticello batters out to begin the bottom of the fourth inning, but Ashlynn Snow would reach on a single followed by a single by Kate Morgan. A third single by Frazer would score Snow followed by a single by Lyle to score Frazer and Morgan to give the Lady Billies a 5-0 lead.
Lyle would walk the first Crossett batter to begin the fifth inning but would strikeout the next three batters to end the inning.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, the Lady Billies would begin the inning with three singles by Anna Morgan, Stanley, and Meygan Bivens.
Morgan and Stanley would score in the series of singles to extend the lead to 7-0.
Kate Morgan would reach on a walk with Bivens advancing to third on a wild pitch and Morgan advancing to second.
Addi Frazer would connect on a line drive to left field that would make contact with the foul pole that was initially ruled a foul ball by the home plate umpire, but after a discussion with the official in the field, the call was changed to a home run, giving the Lady Billies the run-rule, 10-0, win.
On the call being changed, the official rule is the foul pole is fair territory and if a ball even slightly grazes the pole or foul line, the ball is a fair ball and in this instance a home run.
Frazer and Howard each went 2 for 3 in the contest to lead Monticello at the plate with Frazer recording four RBI on the day.
Lyle would record three RBI on the day and would pitch the complete five innings allowing one hit, a walk, and struck out nine batters.
With the win, the Lady Billies improved to 19-1 on the season with a 10-1 record in conference play.
Monticello will play their final game of the regular season on the road, traveling to Stuttgart to face the Lady Rice birds who had defeated on April 24 to pull even with the Lady Billies at the top of the conference with a 10-1 conference record with Stuttgart having defeated the Lady Billies on April 4 in extra innings to give Monticello their only defeat of the regular season.
Stuttgart’s only loss on the season came against Star City, a team that the Lady Billies have defeated twice this season.
The winner of the Thursday, April 27, contest will take home the conference championship and will be the number one seed heading into the 4A South Regional Tournament in DeQueen that is set to begin on Thursday, May 4.
Monticello and Stuttgart will determine the conference title on Thursday, April 27, with a 5 pm start time.
