Ragsdale softball wins first conference title, enjoys perfect season with drive and focus
JAMESTOWN - Ragsdale softball was undefeated, but Gracie Jet Cuthrell was a little concerned, although not the concern of past years when the team was facing adversity like this.
Playing Page on April 10, the Tigers were 13-0 and led 5-3 through two innings, but trailed 7-6 entering the bottom of the seventh.
Freshman Anna Sizemore said the team generally had an "Oh, we're going to win" mindset heading in, having defeated the Pirates 16-5 a month earlier, but the junior Cuthrell said pressure increased as an improved Pirates team threatened their historic undefeated season.
Cuthrell led off by reaching first on an error, then took second and third on a passed ball and a wild pitch. She had faith that freshman first baseman Genesis Edwards would drive her in, but Edwards walked and stole second, putting runners at second and third with nobody out.
Jet's younger sister, Ellie Cuthrell, fouled off four straight pitches. Feeling a duty to deliver for her team and to "Just make contact," she singled to center, scoring both runners for the 8-7 victory.
"Towards the end of that game, I was a little concerned, but I also knew what my team had in them," Jet said. "I knew the drive, I knew we wouldn't give up and I knew that we would win the game."
On Tuesday, Ragsdale (17-0, 11-0) clinched its first-ever regular season conference title in program history with its 16-1 win over Western Guilford (3-13, 3-8) and will have a chance to seal an outright title when it travels to archrival and second-place Southwest Guilford (11-8, 10-1) at 6 p.m. on Friday.
Senior second baseman Alexis Gray has seen this program climb from going 6-12 in 2023 and 7-13 in 2024 to 12-9 last year, before this year's dramatic rise. They went from seventh to fifth in the eight-team Metro 4A Conference during her first three years.
"When I was an underclassman, our confidence would get down really bad after a bad game," Gray said, "but this season, we have a lot of energy and we're always picking each other up and it's just a really good environment to be around and these girls just make the team so much better that it makes me want to come to every practice and every game and I don't want to stop."
Ragsdale had a positive outlook entering the season because realignment sent last year's regular season co-champions, Northern Guilford and Northwest Guilford, to new conferences. Another factor was Southwest Guilford, who Ragsdale had never beaten, returning only three starters.
To their benefit, Ragsdale had three-year starting pitcher in Jet, who is 14-0 this year with a 3.23 ERA, and the emergence of three star freshmen from Jamestown Middle School who are each batting over .650 to top the team.
Through 17 games, leadoff batter Sizemore is batting .660, has a state-high 50 runs scored as of Tuesday and is one of the area's top base-stealers with 23. Behind Jet, a junior who is batting .633 with a team-high 45 RBIs, Edwards (.652, 2 HR) and Ellie (.682, team-high 6 HR, team-high 22 extra-base hits) bat third and fourth for a team that is batting .525 en route to outscoring opponents 296-65 overall and 198-26 in conference play.
Jet saw the freshmen's productivity coming, given knowledge following her younger sister. Gray heard they were coming and said they've brought competition to another level, bringing out "a new side of Ragsdale that we've never really seen before."
Ellie said the trio has grown not just in softball but as people since first meeting in sixth grade at Jamestown. The Jamestown teams didn't have remarkable achievements then, they said, but grew strong friendships there.
The trio has blended in well to form a high-energy team that cheers together in the dugout, comes focused to every practice and even spends time together away from team activities. Every time the defense takes the field, Gray and Sizemore meet each other to tap gloves as a sign of team support.
"I would say that us bonding so much, I feel like has led us to trust each other very well and I feel like trust has led us really far because then we trust each other," Sizemore said. "If I don't get the job done, I know that she'll (Edwards) get the job done."
Throughout the season, the Tigers have won 12 games by double-digits, with 10 by at least 15 runs. In addition to the Page game, the biggest threats to their undefeated record came in two one-run wins over TAAC Six 5A/6A Conference runner-up Southern Guilford.
On March 4, senior Morgan Osborne's RBI triple to right field made it 6-6 and senior Gracie Hitchcock's walk-off single right after to third base won the game, 7-6, in the bottom of the seventh. Three weeks later, Ragsdale led 9-2 through 2 ½ innings, before Southern's comeback made it 11-11 to force extra innings. In the top of the eighth, Hitchcock's grounder through the 3-4 hole brought Osborne home for the game-deciding run.
"And I think during Southern, we wanted it so bad, we were a little bit overanxious, so that made us lead into other innings, but then just overall, we got the job done because we learned how to lock in and get it done," Edwards said.
The Tigers defeated Southwest, 9-6, at home on March 24 after trailing 3-1 through two innings. They hope to achieve their first-ever undefeated record, apart from going 5-0 during the canceled 2020 season.
"I would say that for me personally and for my sister and the team, we take it one game at a time," Jet said. "We are not taking anything for granted, but we are also not letting ourselves get too cocky with this. We understand that any team could take it from us, but we also understand that we can win any game that we play as long as we set our minds to it."
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