A game away from playing for a 7A championship a season ago, this season has generally not gone the Southside Mavericks’ way.

On Tuesday, though, the Mavericks were finally able to enjoy their first 7A-Central win as they went on the road and rolled past Mount St. Mary, 18-4. It was Southside’s first win in conference play and just its second overall win of the season.


“Our conference is tough anyway, but we’ve played the tough part of the conference so far and we’ve played some really tough games,” Southside coach Cassy Story said.

“We talked to (the players) about the importance of being on the road and the importance of needing a conference win, and they did a really good job of coming out and getting things done.”

The Mavs trailed 3-1 in the first inning before taking the lead in the third. Then, they pulled away with four runs in the fourth before adding 10 more runs in the fifth.

“The first inning, we had some defensive errors and we met after the first inning and just talked about that our goals for the rest of the game was eliminating the errors and I think that they did a really good job of that,” Story said. “Then when we can put some runs on the board and eliminate those errors, it just makes it a lot easier and they were able to score some runs and get excited and it was all kind of uphill from there, so they did a good job.”

Vic Nellum went 4-for-4 with two RBIs and four runs scored. Lauren Gonzalez was 2-for-2 with three RBIs and two runs scored, and Hailey Hogue was 2-for-3 with two RBIs and three runs scored. Those three, along with Kylie Eveld, Jessica Mendoza and Tori Taylor, each drove in at least two runs.

Freshman Bailee Sexton was the winning pitcher, going five complete innings and allowing no earned runs. She struck out one batter.

Southside (1-3 in 7A-Central) returns home this Friday to face Little Rock Central.
