State champions! Catawba Ridge girls capture the school’s first-ever softball title

Catawba Ridge beat South Florence 10-7 in Game 2 of the SCHSL Class 4A Softball State Championship Series Thursday night to clinch its first ever softball state title.

The game completes the sweep for the Copperheads, who beat the Bruins 7-6 in extra innings in Game 1 on Tuesday night.

It was a back-and-forth affair early in the game.

Catawba Ridge went ahead 1-0 midway through the first innings, then fell behind 2-1 at the end of the first, then up 3-2 midway through the second inning, and then down 4-3 at the end of the third.

However, the Copperheads broke through with six unanswered runs--two in the fourth inning and four in the sixth--to give them a healthy 9-4 lead midway through the sixth inning. A lead they would not relinquish.

“It’s the game I was expecting,” head coach Michael Kidd said. “I told our girls that we weren’t going to come out here and blow this team out like we’ve done a lot of teams this year. It was going to be a close ballgame. We were going to have nerves. We were going to have highs. We were going to have lows, and we had to go through those to win a ballgame.”

This is the second straight state championship appearance for Catawba Ridge. The team was swept by North Augusta in last year’s series.

“I feel like these girls are hungry enough, they’ll be looking for something else,” Kidd said. “They’re in. They’re trusting the process. They trust in what we’re giving them. They work hard every day. They lift in the mornings, workout in the afternoons on the ball field, so they’ve earned every opportunity they’ve been given.”

The Copperheads look to add another state championship trophy tonight as the baseball team takes on North Myrtle Beach at Jimmy White Park in Hartsville for Game 3 of the Class 4A Baseball State Championship Series.

That game starts at 6 p.m.