The third time was not the charm for the Lake View softball team. Abbeville scored a 6-2 win at Irmo High School to claim the 1A state championship. It's the second straight year that the Wild Gators have reached the championship series and fell short in the title game. Lake View has been in the state finals in five of the last six years, winning a lone title in 2007.
Games one and two were both 1-0 games, but the decisive third matchup produced eight total runs and four home runs. Abbeville jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the 1st inning then padded the lead in the second as Lisa Sanders scored on a wild pitch to make it 2-0. In the 3rd, Jordan Ashley pounded a home run to left to put the Panthers in front 3-0.
Lake View got on the bord in the bottom of the third as Morgan Wetherington hit her second HR of the state championship series. That got the Wild Gators within 2, but Ashley's second HR of the game put Abbeville in front 5-1. Lake View threatened in the 5th as Chessie Miller launched a HR to left to make it a 5-2 game. The Wild Gators would bring the tying run to the plate with no outs in the 5th, but could not get any more runs across.
"The pleasure has been all mine coaching them," Lake View coach Chad Huggins said. "If every coach had a group like that to coach, that senior class, this job would be easy. All year I told the girls we needed eight wins in the playoffs to be state champs. This year we got eight, but we needed nine to do it and we were one win short."
Lake View finished the season 29-5.
