By By BRUCE HIXON – Sports Editor
Granted, the Jefferson Davis Community College Lady Warhawks softball team has just a 2-6 record in the early days of the season.
Yet those two wins are impressive ones. Their season-opening victory over Central Alabama came against a team that was 40-10 last year. JDCC's second victory came Friday when they knocked off visiting Wallace State-Hanceville 5-1 in the first game of a doubleheader. Wallace State-Hanceville won the Alabama state tournament last year and qualified for the national tournament.
Nikki Madden threw a complete game four-hitter and the lone run she allowed was unearned.
The Lady Warhawks also got some productive hitting, as Carleen Clark had a pair of singles, a double and an RBI. Makeyia Burt had a pair of hits and drove in a pair of runs. Tanna Fontes also had two hits, while Lakyn Newton had a double and an RBI. Kayla Galloway and Jessica Cunningham each had one hit.
Wallace State-Hanceville earned a split of the day's action with an 11-1 win in game two.
It was a costly loss for the Lady Warhawks, as their already thin 11-member roster got a little shorter when freshman pitcher Amberly Whitworth took a line drive in the third inning and broke the knuckle of her index finger on her pitching hand. Wallace State-Hanceville already had a 5-1 lead at that time and added six runs against Madden.
Newton had a pair of hits to lead JDCC, while Clark had a single and the lone RBI. Galloway and Burt also had a hit.
JDCC will get its first road test of the season Monday when it travels to Bevill State for a 1 p.m. doubleheader.
Friday's game one
WS Hanceville 000 001 0 – 1 4 2
JDCC 101 201 X – 5 10 3
Game two
WS Hanceville 223 100 3 – 11 14 1
JDCC 001 000 0 – 1 7 2
Okaloosa-Walton sweeps JDCC
JDCC suffered a pair of home setbacks Thursday when it was swept in a doubleheader by Okaloosa-Walton 8-5 in the opener and 8-1 in the nightcap.
The Lady Warhawks nearly climbed out of a 6-0 hole they dug in the first four innings of game one with a five-run rally in the bottom of the fifth.
The comeback began when Rayna Hall singled and Stacy Sanders parked a pitch over the leftfield wall for a two-run homer. Jessica Cunningham reached on an infield error and moved up a base on Amberly Whitworth's singles. That set up a two-run triple by Makeyia Burt. Burt then scored on Tanna Fontes' RBI groundout to make it 6-5.
JDCC threatened to erase the rest of the deficit in the sixth inning, but left the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position.
Okaloosa-Walton secured the win in the top of the seventh with a pair of insurance runs, one of which was a solo homerun off starting and losing hurler Nikki Madden.
Four errors led to JDCC's downfall in game two, as Okaloosa-Walton plated a pair of runs in the first, third, fourth and sixth innings against losing hurler Amberly Whitworth.
The Lady Warhawks' lone run came in the bottom of the first when Carleen Clark went deep for a solo homerun.
Thursday's game one
Ok.-Walton 014 100 2 – 8 12 1
JDCC 000 000 050 0 – 5 8 2
Game two
Ok.-Walton 202 202 0 – 8 13 0
JDCC 100 000 0 – 1 5 4