Stay in Fort Smith ends abruptly for Bryant
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FORT SMITH — The Bryant Lady Hornets stay in Fort Smith came to a rather abrupt end on Saturday, March 22.
The Lady Hornets had dismissed the Alma Lady Airedales 9-1 then knocked off a highly-regarded Farmington Lady Cardinals team, 6-1, to reach the winners bracket finals against the Fort Smith Northside Lady Grizzlies.
Before the game was over, Bryant head coach Stacy Mallett had been ejected from the game, pulled her team off the field and brought them home.
“At the first of the game, the first pitch, the first batter (for Northside) tried to drag bunt and one of our fans said, ‘She’s out of the (batter’s) box,’” recalled Mallett Sunday. “The homeplate umpire ripped his mask off, went to the fence and started screaming at the fan and it just went downhill from there.
“I went to (the umpire) between innings and said, ‘As long as they’re not yelling something profane or derogatory towards the kids, you don’t go over and have a conversation with the fans.’ He patted me and started talking to me like I was 5 years old saying that he’d been around much more ball than I had.
“Then in the third inning, he told me that (Bryant pitcher) Kara (Vaughn) was pitching illegal, that she wasn’t taking her signs from the catcher while she was on the rubber,” Mallett continued. “Now, she had never had an illegal pitch called on her ever. It was 1-0, them, and the first batter of the fourth inning came up and he called an illegal pitch. I told Kara to make certain she was on the rubber when she took the sign. In fact, we didn’t give any more signs for (catcher) Jeanne (Randall) to give her.”
The batter hit a single, the next batter sacrificed the runner to second. Vaughn then recorded a strikeout and no illegal pitches were called. On the fourth batter, the first pitch was called illegal, advancing the runner to third. With 1-2 count, Vaughn got the batter to bounce to Lindsey Sullivan at second. Sullivan threw to first for the apparent third out to end the inning.
“We started running to the dugout and the umpire ran onto the field and said it was an illegal pitch, scoring the run from third and bringing the batter back,” Mallett recounted. “I went up there and asked him to explain and he started screaming and yelling and pointing at me. I finally tell him to get out of my face. I never raised my voice or anything. He turns around and starts dusting the plate off and screamed back at me, ‘I’m out of your face.’ And I said, ‘I still want to discuss the illegal pitch call,’ and he came running at me again and said, ‘I will explain to you one more time, read my lips.’ He was pointing right at my nose and I said, ‘Get out of my face,’ and he ejected me from the game.
“So, I started to leave the field and thought, ‘You know, I’m not going have my kids go through this. So, I said, ‘Let’s go.’ We left.”
Mallett said she wrote to the Arkansas Athletic Association about the incident. She planned to deliver it personally Monday morning.
Vaughn had pitched in the win over Alma without a single illegal pitch call. Against Farmington, Kelly Norman was the pitcher.
“The Farmington coach began to complain toward the end of the game that Kelly was not presenting the ball correctly before she pitched,” Mallett noted. “That was correct. She wasn’t. You either have to have the ball in your glove, your hand by your side with the ball in your hand, apart from your glove when you start to pitch. Then you have to put them together as you begin to pitch. She was starting with them together and not separate which is an illegal pitch. They called three illegal pitches on Kelly and that’s how Farmington scored their only run.
“The two umpires that were calling that game, stayed and talked while the two umpires came onto the field for the finals of the winners bracket game between us and Northside. The umpire came to me while all four umpires were there and all the Northside coaches and said, ‘Do you understand why we were calling the illegal pitch?’ and I said, ‘Yes, and she does too.’ They said, ‘Well, just tell her to watch that.’ And the umpire that was going to be working behind the plate started questioning the other umpire about what was illegal and I said, ‘You don’t need to worry about that because you’re going to be seeing a different pitcher. She’s not even pitching this game.’ Because Kara was going to pitch. Then the first illegal pitch he called wasn’t until the fourth inning.”
Northside took the resulting forfeit and advanced to the championship game.
In the game against Alma, Rachel Blakley led the Bryant offense with a 2 for 3 game. Kaci Melhorn got a start at first base against Farmington in an effort to spark the offense and she did, keying a five-run first with a bases-loaded double that cleared the bags. Amie Hubbard was 2 for 3 in the game.
The wins came on a rebound after a tough 1-0 loss to AAAAA-Central Conference rival Conway on Thursday, March 20. The Lady Wampus Cats had been piling up big offensive numbers against everyone they played, but on Thursday, the two teams battled to a scoreless tie through five innings. Each team had managed just one hit before, in the bottom of the sixth, a single, a bunt hit and another single had the bases loaded for Conway. Vaughn came in to relieve Norman and a sacrifice fly scored the only run of the game. Vaughn then got out of the inning, leaving the bases jammed.
But the Lady Hornets were held to just three baserunners in the game including one on a walk in the top of the seventh. Bryant’s lone hit was a single by Lindsey Sullivan in the fourth.
“It was a great game,” Mallett said. “Our defense was absolutely unbelievable.”
Earlier in the week, the Lady Hornets had picked up a conference win in three innings, 15-0, over Little Rock Central. Eleven walks in the three frames aided the Bryant cause.
Counting the Northside game as a forfeit, the Lady Hornets took a 7-4 record into spring break, 2-2 in conference play. They were set to return to league action on Tuesday, April 1, at home against Little Rock Hall.
