By PATRICK CASEY
The Walton softball team won four games in less than 24 hours at Frank Brown Park in Panama City Beach as the Lady Braves posted wins of 10-0 over Liberty County, 10-0 over Tallahassee Leon, 1-0 over Franklin County and 11-1 over Choctaw at the Florida-USA Softball Challenge.
Walton, Milton and Tallahassee Chiles each finished the two-day event that started Friday afternoon with a 4-0 mark but the Braves took the title with a 32-1 scoring differential in the four combined-games score total.
Sophomore pitcher Hannah Poole threw a no-hitter on Friday evening against Liberty County as the Braves scored seven runs in the bottom of the first inning and led 10-0 after three. Jasmin Hester, Celeste Truett and Macy Danley each drove in two runs in the contest as Poole struck out 11 in five innings of work.
Walton then faced Tallahassee Leon in a contest that started just a few minutes before 9 p.m. and the Braves jumped on the Lions for six runs in the first two innings. Poole had a pair of singles in her first two at-bats in the game and would drive in four runs on the night, including a bases-clearing double in the bottom of the fifth to end the contest.
Leon committed five errors in the first two innings and pretty much sealed their fate as Poole would allow only one hit while striking out 10 batters in the five inning complete game.
On Saturday, Walton opened with a 1-0 win over Franklin County as the Braves scored the only run of the game in the top of the seventh inning as Jamie Lamb drove in Kelee Mosley. Lamb had two of the Braves six hits while Poole allowed three hits but struck out 13 to earn the win.
Walton was originally scheduled to play Bozeman in the final game of the tourney but the Bucks did not return for the second day of the tournament. Choctaw wound up as the Braves’ replacement foe and trailed Walton only 2-1 in the fifth inning before the DeFuniak Springs club exploded for nine runs over their next two at-bats to end the contest with an 11-1 decision after six innings.
Lamb drove in six with three of Walton’s nine hits in the game. Choctaw committed four errors and scored a run despite not being able to get a hit off of Poole during the contest. Poole struck out 10 batters as she threw her second no-hitter of the tourney, allowing only four hits in four games combined.
Walton improved to 9-2 overall with the victory and will return to Panama City twice this week as the Braves play at Bay High on Wednesday night at 6 p.m. and at Rutherford on Friday night, also at 6 p.m. Both games are district contests and a pair of wins would put the Braves on the cusp of wrapping up the top seed in next month’s district tournament, which will be played at Rutherford High School.