VILONIA — What a difference a year makes.
Last year, the Vilonia Lady Eagles were dealing with personal turmoil following a devastating tornado in April that hit their city. Even though they were conference softball champions, the girls lost in the Class 5A state finals to White Hall and finished as the state runners-up.
“It was a rollercoaster of emotions for them,” said coach Kevin Sullivan. “We kind of had to regroup; we had a couple of players lose their homes. I think it was an escape for them to get out and play. This year, we had a little less on our plate as far as that’s concerned.”
On May 22, the team won the Class 5A state championship to end a season in which it came from behind in several regular-season and playoff games, Sullivan said. The Lady Eagles beat Paragould 5-2 at Bogle Park on the campus of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville to win the championship.
It was the second Vilonia softball state championship in recent history — the team also won the title in 2007 when Sullivan was an assistant under Calvin Robinette.
The MVP of this year’s state championship game was senior Buggy Lyons, who hit a three-run homer in the fifth inning.
“I got up there and my first pitch was a high outside ball, and l was able to keep from swinging at it,” she said.
“I said, ‘God, you’re going to have to help me with this, because I can’t do it on my own.’ He just gave me the confidence, and she gave me an inside pitch and I said, ‘Hey, that looks pretty,’” Lyons said, laughing.
She thought the ball might go foul, but she said she hoped it “just got through the gap, something to let one of us score.” Players were on first and third base at the time.
Three players scored, including Lyons. “I rounded first, and I looked up and I saw it over the fence,” she said.
It cleared a fence outside a taller fence, she said, estimating that the ball went “more than 200 feet.” Lyons said that’s the longest home run she’s ever hit.
Sullivan said the Lady Eagles (27-4) had won 22 games in a row going into the finals, so they had a right to feel confident.
“We kind of felt like we were rolling pretty good, but you never know — you just have to be better than that one team on that day,” he said.
In the first round of the state tournament, Vilonia beat Watson Chapel 8-4. Then, the Lady Eagles faced Greene County Tech. “That was delayed halfway through,” Sullivan said. “We were actually down 3-0, and the rains came and washed us out, and we had to come back Saturday and finish. It may have been the best thing for us; we scored four runs in the second half [of that game] and won that.”
Then, the Vilonia girls took the field with De Queen and won 10-0. Although that sounds like a walk in the park, Sullivan said it wasn’t as lopsided as it sounds. “De Queen, they’ve got a lot of young talent; they’re very talented. I feel like they’ll be very tough in the next couple of years. They made one mistake, and that led to another.”
Paragould (26-2) has “some very talented kids going to D-I schools to play softball,” Sullivan said. “I felt like our nine was as tough as their nine; I thought they [Paragould] were very well-coached. [Bill] Schatzley does a great job over there, so we knew we were going to have a run for our money; we were going to be in a fight,” Sullivan said.
“We scored first; they came back and tied it and actually took the lead 2-1.”
Coming from behind wasn’t new to the Lady Eagles, but Sullivan said this time, there was no next game if they didn’t rally.
“In this [one], we lose, we go home,” he said. “We ended up scoring on an error to tie it 2-2. We hit a popup in the infield — Paragould had some miscommunication — and they didn’t catch it, so it put runners on first and third for my senior shortstop. This is a kid that outworks so many other kids; it was so fitting for her to be at the plate.”
Lyons hit the home run, and Vilonia took the lead and held it. The Lady Eagles held Paragould scoreless in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings.
“I told Coach Schatzley after the game that his kids looked exactly like mine did last year,” Sullivan said. “This year, we were the ones who had been there before. His kids, it was their first time on that type of a stage.”
Lyons said that made a big difference.
“We were definitely crying both years; this year was definitely the happy cry,” she said. “We can’t believe it happened. We were all sitting there, ‘OK, we can wake up from the dream now.’”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.