BRISTOW — For a team that has spent much of the season waiting for something to break its way, Cleveland did not wait long last Thursday night. The Lady Tigers took matters into their own hands.
Down 3-0 after one inning, The Lady Tigers exploded for seven runs in the second, added three more in the third, then uncorked an eight-run flash flood on Bristow in the fifth to finish off an 18-6 victory.
And for one night last week, the record did not matter. The losses did not matter. The brutal season did not matter.
Cleveland hit, ran, showed unlimited patience at the plate, pressured, pestered and finally overwhelmed Bristow both in the field and at the plate.
The Lady Tigers improved to 3-17, but Thursday’s Lady Tigers did not look like a threewin team.They looked like a team that had been waiting a long time to let it out.
The game turned in the second.
Tenique Poole opened the inning with a walk, and Cleveland immediately began applying pressure. Khloe Carter reached on an error, allowing Poole to score. Averi Brisbin grounded out to bring Carter home. Just like that, 3-0 became 3-2.
Then Cleveland began working the count.
Teagen Hambright walked. Shelby Taylor walked. Kamdyn Harrold walked.
The bags were loaded. Abigail Bevins drew another walk, sending Hambright across with the tying run. Brylie Buntin walked next, bringing Taylor home.
Now Cleveland led 4-3. And then Poole came back around.
This time, she had no intention of walking. She drove the ball deep into right field.
Harrold scored. Bevins scored. Buntin scored.
Seven Cleveland runs had crossed the plate before Bristow could find that third out. A 3-0 deficit had been erased and turned into a 7-3 lead in the space of one inning.
The Lady Tigers were not finished. In the third, Taylor reached and stole third. Harrold was plunked. Bevins singled. Buntin walked with the bases loaded to bring Taylor home. Poole was plunked, forcing Harrold across. Carter followed with a ground ball that brought Bevins home.
Cleveland 10, Bristow 3. The Lady Tigers had gone from chasing the game to controlling it.
Then came the fifth. If the second frame was the comeback, the fifth was the knock down.
Bevins reached on an error and made it all the way to third. Buntin walked. Poole reached on another error, scoring Bevins.
Carter walked. Brisbin walked. Hambright walked, forcing in another run.
The bases stayed locked and loaded all night.
Taylor came to the plate and slapped a single back through the middle, bringing Carter home.
Harrold followed with a hard ground-ball single to left. Brisbin scored.
Then Bevins came up again. This time there would be no walk.
No error. No help required. She drove a double into left field.
Harrold scored. Hambright scored. Taylor scored. Three runs on one swing.
Cleveland led 17-4. By the time Poole reached on another error and Bevins came home with run No. 18, the Lady Tigers had put eight runs across in the inning and turned the game into an out of control dumpster fire for the Bristow Ladies.
Bevins was at the center of it all.
The Cleveland shortstop went 3-for-4 with a double, four RBIs and four runs scored. She reached base again on a walk and delivered the biggest hit of the night with the three-run double in the fifth. Poole drove in four runs of her own. Taylor scored three times. Harrold scored three times. Buntin reached base five times — once on a hit and four times by walk — and drove in two.
Cleveland finished with eight hits but forced Bristow pitchers to throw strikes all night, drawing 16 walks. The Lady Tigers also stole four bases and played error-free defense.
And while the offense was making noise, Carter kept the game from getting away.
She went five innings in the circle, allowing eight hits and six runs while striking out five and walking only one.
Ninety-nine pitches. Fiftynine strikes. And a win.
For a team sitting at 3-17, nobody is going to pretend one victory erases the entire first half of the season.
But sometimes a single game can remind a team what it looks like when everything starts working at once.
Thursday night, Cleveland did not just find a win.
The Lady Tigers found the gas pedal.
And they pushed it all the way down.