By Sara Page, Midlothian Exchange
spage@midlothianexchange.com

The 2010 Dominion District softball tournament final looked a whole lot like the 2009 version.

For the second year in a row, the Cosby and Midlothian teams finished 1 and 2, respectively, in the regular season. For the second year in a row, the teams both made the final showdown.

And, for the second year in a row, the Lady Titans took home the hardware. Cosby won a 4-0 result over Midlothian on a steamy summer-like day.

The Titans got on the board early when centerfielder Sarah Wiltshire reached on an error. She came around to score two batters later on a base hit by catcher Taylor Hall. Cosby took a 1-0 lead out of the first inning and never relinquished.

The Cosby defense snagged Midlothian scoring opportunities, sometimes simply by being in the right place at the right time.

With one out in the top of the third, Cosby third baseman Maddie Lloyd snatched a high line drive off the bat of Midlothian’s Peyton Larus. Larus earlier had shown bunt, which pulled the Cosby infield closer to the plate. When she swung at the next pitch, the ball cruised as if drawn by a magnet into Lloyd’s glove.

Cosby would add two more on an in-the-park, two-run homerun by Megan Bell-Hill in the bottom of the inning. But a scary moment at the end of the play overshadowed the game and stopped the game for nearly 30 minutes.

Bell-Hill sent a well-hit ball deep to right field. As she rounded third, she turned on the afterburners as she got the sign from Cosby coach Ray Jeter to try for home. Midlothian catcher Rudy Edmunds, who had taken a hard foul ball to the chest in the first inning, took good position to block the plate and field the incoming throw. Bell-Hill went down for the slide on what was going to be a close play. Whether the ball popped out before or as a result of the collision was not clear, but Edmunds took the brunt of the hit to the forehead and lay on the ground for some time as an ambulance was called to the scene.

“She’s had several concussions in the past so that’s the big concern,” Midlothian head coach Denise Manuel said. “It was a pretty heavy collision at the plate.”

Both teams returned to the field, understandably, shaken. The Midlothian defense got the final outs on a fly ball to center field and a strikeout by pitcher Logan Carter.

The Titans would add the final tally in the fourth inning when Jenn Moss came around to score on a base hit to shallow centerfield by Sink.

Midlothian got their offense going in the sixth inning when Larus caught the Cosby infield playing in and sent a ground ball through the gap into center field. Alexis Livingston added a base hit, and Whitney Smith reached on an error. But Cosby reliever Julianne Sweat settled in for the long haul and struck out the final batter in the inning.

The Cosby defense appeared strong heading into next week’s Central Region tournament. The team turned a classic 6-4-3 double play in the fourth inning.

“That was really exciting,” Sink said. “That was our first time of getting that kind of double play. We’ve been practicing that all year long.”

Midlothian played Prince George in the first round of the Central Region softball tournament on Tuesday.

“We just need to come ready to play,” Manuel said. “We’ve done a lot of different things … It’s just whether or not you can pull it together as a team, so we’ll be working on that. We’ve done some really nice things [this season], and hopefully, we’ll do it again.”

Cosby hosted Dinwiddie in its first round game on Tuesday.

“It’s going to be a hard fought game,” Sink promised. “It’s going to be two good teams playing against each other, so it’s just whoever comes up at the end, I guess.”