Defending SCISA AAA runner-up Orangeburg Prep beats defending AA champ Clarendon Hall 13-0

               Summerton – Orangeburg Preparatory School and Clarendon Hall both have softball teams that know how to win. OP is the defending runner-up in SCISA AAA, while the Lady Saints are 2-time defending state champions, capturing the AA crown last year.

               So even for a very early-season matchup, there was intrigue as the teams faced off on Tuesday at the CH field. And for the first two scoreless innings, that intrigue remained. However, when the Lady Indians broke through for four runs in the top of the third, that turned the game into a runaway affair.

               Orangeburg Prep added another run in the fourth and posted eight in the fifth for a 13-0 victory that ended after five innings due to the 10-run mercy rule.

               “We just came out ready to play,” said OP head coach Marty Kinard, the former Claflin University and Coker College head coach who guided the Lady Indians to the state championship series last year in his first season. “This is a team that's gritty. We lost in the state championship last year, and we return everybody, and we want to get back there, to make another run.”

           With senior pitcher Payton Schurlknight in the circle, Orangeburg Prep certainly looks formidable. The Lander University signee tossed a 1-hitter on Tuesday, a leadoff double to Clarendon Hall’s Sidney Berry in the fifth. Schurlknight struck out 10 and walked just two.

           “Payton just threw her game tonight,” Kinard said. “She threw well tonight. Coming off of basketball (Orangeburg Prep reached the state semifinals), she wasn't as sharp (in a 2-1 loss to Branchville over the weekend). But tonight, she had her stuff.”

           Kinard said he was happier with the way his team played defense than with the offensive production.

           "We've had a focus on being defensive-minded, so that zero on the scoreboard was big for us, more than the 13. We want to play good defense, we want to have our pitcher's back. We knew they would put the ball in play, so we said let's not kick it around.”

Schurlknight was also strong at the plate, as was her younger sister, Prestan Schurlknight. Payton had two hits, including a double, to go with two runs scored and two runs batted in. Prestan had three hits, one of them a double, three runs and two stolen bases.

           The Lady Indians finished with nine hits. Lauren Ballew, Jane Walker Yonce, Layla Garrick and Calee Hartzog each had a hit. Ballew had two runs and two RBI, Yonce, had a run and stolen base, Garrick had a run and an RBI and Hartzog had a run.

           Senior Katherine Lambrecht didn’t get a hit, but drew three walks, stole a base and scored twice.

           While obviously not happy with a mercy-rule loss, Lady Saints head coach Jeffrey Bays tried to keep things in perspective.

           “I told the girls this game doesn't define our season,” Bays said. "It's tough to take a loss like that. Usually, we've played in the Pee Dee Pitch-Off by now, scrimmaged Laurence Manning a couple of times by now, Lakewood.”

           Clarendon Hall didn’t get in much preseason work because most of the girls were on the basketball team that reached the AA state championship game. The Lady Saints had played two regular-season games, beating St. John's Christian Academy twice by the scores of 15-0 and 10-0.

“We're a much better team than what we showed tonight,” Bays said. “We've got to turn the intensity up at practice. We're not where we need to be yet, but we'll get there. This group of girls they're a hard-working bunch of girls, and they don't want to take a loss like this.”

CH lost only one player from last year’s team in Olivia Wilson. Eighth-grader Brynli Brewer is the newcomer to the batting order. Brewer is batting leadoff and drew the two walks issued by Payton Schurlknight.

 Orangeburg Prep returns its entire team from last season, so expectations are extremely high.

           “I couldn't ask for a better group of kids to come out every day,” Kinard said. “They never complain. If I call a practice on a Sunday, they're not going to complain. They know we're not off tomorrow (Wednesday). We've got games this weekend we've got to prepare for and they’re ready to do that.