How Belton-Honea Path softball stole home and Game 1 of Class AAA state championship

HONEA PATH — Madi Boggs was coming home.

The plan was for Belton-Honea Path to squeeze bunt Boggs home from third base in the bottom of the ninth inning Monday night to win the opening game of the SCHSL Class AAA high school softball state championship series.

Squeeze or no squeeze, Bogg was coming home.

The bunt missed and she was already halfway to the plate before retreating. But the catcher’s throw to third allowed Boggs to spin and score with a headfirst slide as Belton-Honea Path beat Aynor 2-1.

Belton-Honea Path (33-4) will play Game 2 at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Aynor (22-5). A third game, if necessary, will be at a neutral site.

Boggs was the free runner at second base to start the ninth, using international extra-inning rules. Infield hits by Alexis Jenkins and Emma Evans loaded the bases with nobody out.

“If we missed the bunt,” Boggs, an eighth-grade left fielder said, “I was supposed to get in a rundown, so I could get home. I just had to make sure I was concentrating and not worried about everything that was going on around me.”

What was going on in the pitcher’s circle was that Aynor had ace pitcher Maddie Johnson, a Clemson commit who had come on in relief in the sixth.

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“We had speed on all the bases,” Belton-Honea Path coach Jarad Jennings said. "So if it didn’t work, we would at least get two more shots. (Boggs) is one of the fastest on the team and she was the one who got put on second base because she made the last out (in the eighth).

"We talked about it. I said, "If you get in a rundown, at least get the runners to the next base.' It just kind of worked out.”

Chloe Maness homered in the first inning and Aynor pulled even in the fifth, but that’s all the Blue Jackets could get against Bears pitcher Kinsley Kay, who went all nine innings and allowed seven hits, all singles, and struck out nine.

Belton-Honea Path first baseman Liv Hall made a possible game-saving defensive play in the top of the ninth. She knocked down a wild throw from third base, keeping the ball nearby and Aynor’s free runner on third.

“That was a huge play,” Jennings said. “If that play doesn’t happen, you never know what happens in the bottom of the inning.”

Todd Shanesy is a former award-winning writer who now covers high school athletics for the Greenville News, Spartanburg Herald-Journal and Anderson Independent Mail in the USA TODAY Network. Contact him by email at todd.shanesy@shj.com . Follow him on X, formerly called Twitter, at @ToddShanesySHJ .

This article originally appeared on Herald-Journal: How Belton-Honea Path softball stole home and Game 1 of Class AAA state championship