Marceline High School softball wins 11 inning thriller over South Harrison to win Class 2 District 6 Title

BROOKFIELD, Mo. (KQTV) - In a wild and crazy back-and-forth contest, the 1 seed Marceline High School softball team defeated 2 seed South Harrison 6-5 to win the Class 2 District 6 Championship in Brookfield on Monday.

South Harrison jumped on the board first on a solo home run by North Carolina Tar Heel commit Bailey Barnett in the top of the first inning to go up 1-0.

Marceline then scored 3 combined runs in the 2nd and 3rd innings to lead 3-1. But South Harrison got another 2 run home run from sophomore Madi Meadows in the top of the 5th to tie the game 3-3. It would eventually head into extra innings by that score.

In the top of the 11th, senior Lilly Wiley blasted out South Harrison's third home run of the ball game on a 2-run bomb to take a 5-3 advantage.

But faced with their final 3 outs in the bottom of the 11th, Marceline didn't waver. Junior Katey Kussman had an RBI single for the Lady Tigers to pull within 5-4.

Then with runners on second and third for Gentry Burns, the sophomore hit a ball that dropped in deep left field that scored both runs in Marceline's walk-off victory.

Juniors Emerald Bloss and Syracuse commit Rory Fitzgerald had a crazy pitching duel Monday night. Bloss finished with 13 strikeouts in 11 innings pitched while giving up 8 hits and 5 runs for Marceline. Fitzgerald had 9 strikeouts in 10.2 innings pitched while giving up 8 hits and 6 runs for South Harrison.

For Marceline, Burns finished 1-for-6 with 2 RBI, Kussman finished 1-for-5 with 2 RBI, senior Sophie Lockwood was 2-for-3 with 1 RBI and senior Hadley Dorrell was 2-for-6 with 1 RBI.

For South Harrison, Wiley was 3-for-5 with 2 RBI and a home run, Meadows was 2-for-5 with 2 RBI and a home run and Barnett was 1-for-4 with 1 RBI and a home run.

South Harrison finishes the season with a 19-11 record. Marceline improves to 25-0 and will take on Highland in the Class 2 State Quarterfinals on Saturday, October 24th. Time TBD.