Davis fires shutout in win over Forest

the win for Vanguard.

Vanguard head coach Carrie Vance knew early in the game that her team was ready to play.

“They brought the energy and the heart tonight. We encourage the high energy and the players supporting each other every pitch of the game,” Vance said.

Davis was the star of the night by firing a complete-game shutout with eight strikeouts and the sophomore credits her defense and support for the success in the circle.

“It’s exciting, we’ve been working hard on what we need to fix and we just showed up tonight. The girls produced all day and they all did a great job backing me up on defense. I couldn’t have asked for a better game tonight,” Davis said.

For Forest head coach Dan Kelley the hard-fought loss to a rival stung but he was optimistic about the next couple of weeks as district play starts.

By Allen Barney allen@ocalagazette.com

The Vanguard Knights (103) rode the arm of Hannah Davis and her seven shutout innings to a 3-0 win over the Forest Wildcats (9-8) on March 30.

Vanguard started the scoring in the bottom of the first when Destiny Horcajo was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning. After a pass ball and a sacrifice bunt, Lillyan Land drove in Horcajo with a sacrifice fly to right field.

Forest got a leadoff single from Aurora Shifflett to start the top of the second. Shifflett was called out on a close play at second base after a ground ball off the bat of Leah Meyer.

Lewis retired Jaelynne Whipple and Jaylyn Burnside to keep Vanguard’s lead.

Vanguard stayed in attack mode in the bottom of the second when Kaylee Myers reached on a bunt single and stole second base. Victoria Graham laid down a perfectly placed bunt on the third base side and a throwing error allowed Myers to score and give Vanguard a 2-0 lead.

Izzy Lewis reached on a twoout single in the top of the third but was stranded when Davis induced a groundout to end the inning. Neither team had a hitter reach base until the bottom of the fifth inning, when Vanguard added an insurance run on a run-scoring single from Horcajo.

Forest could not muster any rally on offense in the sixth inning but had some momentum in the top of the seventh when Lewis singled to center to start the inning. Meyer followed up with a hard-hit ground ball to short and Vanguard got Lewis out on a close play at second. Meyer was caught trying to steal second base a couple pitches later, before Lewis struck out Whipple on a fastball to secure

“They wanted it a little more than we did. We had more hits, but we made mistakes and they took advantage of every opportunity and that’s how you win. Their pitcher pitched a great game,” Kelley said. “We will get another chance to play them and that’s what nice about a 26-game schedule. You have ups and downs, but we can bounce back.”

The Forest offense was led by Shifflett and Lewis with two hits each. Meyer pitched six innings and gave one earned run with five strikeouts.

The turnaround for the Vanguard softball program has been impressive after going 1-15 in 2021. Now, the Knights have the best record in Marion County and Vance wants to see continued work towards improvement as the season rolls on.

“I preached to them that we’re not done and we have to keep getting better because that’s what other teams are doing too. We have to keep putting in work and buying in to what we’re building,” Vance said.