Stutts leads Scotland softball past Richmond

LAURINBURG — Avery Stutts has had a do-it-all start to the year for the Scotland Fighting Scots softball team.

Tuesday night against the Richmond Raiders, she delivered yet again.

Stutts, a Campbell University commit who has pitched every inning in Scotland’s seven games, threw a one-hitter with no runs allowed and 13 strikeouts to only a single walk against the Raiders and also went yard in the third inning with a solo home run to help Scotland earn a 4-0 win on its home field.

“We’re riding the coattails of Avery Stutts,” Scotland coach Adam Romaine said. “She’s doing a great job out there. She helped herself with the backside solo home run, which is huge for her. She’s carrying us right now defensively, which is a great thing to have. But we’ve got to do better with the bats. I like how she takes the team on her back, and she answered back; she had one rough inning tonight, threw in some extra pitches she didn’t need to pull. But she made her adjustment. She gets better as the game gets on. That’s what she did tonight.”

“Try to do my best because that is our rival, and everybody wanted me on my game,” Stutts said. “I had high expectations. I had high expectations for myself, as well. So I really tried to live up to those.”

The victory for Scotland (7-0, 6-0 Sandhills Athletic Conference) is its eighth consecutive in the series with Richmond (4-4, 3-3 SAC), dating back to 2021.

“It’s always a big thing because they’ve always been our cross-county rivals,” Romaine said. “I’ve got quite a few newer girls that don’t really understand it. They didn’t really get into it and the feeling of it as much pregame and into the game. They were happy and excited to play, have them here and to get the win. But at the end of the day, we made a couple miscues at the plate and on the base. But we’ll learn from it and hopefully do better next time we play Richmond.”

A rough second frame put Scotland in an early bind. Jakayla Steele’s frozen rope gave her a double — and the Raiders’ only hit — and Madelyn Pearson was hit by a pitch to put two runners on. Christi Jacobs was then subsequently walked to load the bases before Stutts came through with a strikeout of Addyson Hollingsworth for the third out.

Stutts went back in the third and struck out two of the three batters she faced.

”When I was pitching, my curveball actually was not working that well.,” Stutts said. “So, I had to adjust, have my mom come tell me what I was doing. She’s my number-one pitching coach. So as soon as I got that figured out, my mechanics got back to work, and I started being myself again.”

Once she retired the pair in the top of the inning, she stayed out in the bottom as the first Lady Scot at-bat, getting her dinger on the third pitch.

“I watched one right down the middle, and then I swung at the second one, fouled it off, and I was like, you know what, anything close, I’m just gonna try and tank it,” Stutts said. “I could tell off the bat. You can tell as a hitter. It hits that sweet spot, and it has that sound, like everybody knows. That’s what I got.”

After putting up a donut in the fourth, the Lady Scots erupted for three more scores in the fifth. The first two came on Addison Johnson’s RBI single that brought home Addison Lewis from third and Ava Gale from second; Dawson Blue got hit by a pitch afterward at the plate, then stole second, third and home on two Richmond errors for the fourth run.

A Lady Scot was left on base in the sixth, while Richmond didn’t have another on its last two times up.

“We know we’ve got a job to do when it’s business once you step inside the white line,” Romaine said. “And I always tell them, I said, we can only control what happens inside the white line.”

Johnson had a hit with two RBIs for Scotland, which totaled just four hits; Madison Dixon, Emily Sampson and Stutts each finished with one.

Pearson pitched a complete game, allowing two earned runs on four hits with five strikeouts to take the loss for Richmond.

Scotland’s game against South View on Wednesday is canceled; if expected rain holds off, Scotland will take the field next against Hoke County on Thursday.

It’s Scotland’s third nonconference contest not being played due to weather.

“We’ve seen pretty decent pitching in-conference, but we haven’t seen what we know we were going to see with some of the nonconference games I’ve set up this year because I went after some teams that I know have some strong pitchers and put great numbers up,” Romaine said.