The softball season ended one win short of a place in the North Central Regional tournament for the Piedmont Bulldogs. A 6-1 loss to Glencoe was Piedmont’s second loss of the Class 3A, Area 10 tournament and left the Bulldogs in third place. The top two teams in the area tournament advanced to the regional. Earlier, Piedmont fell to eventual Area 10 tournament winner White Plains 9-4. That loss dropped the Bulldogs (10-19) into the elimination bracket where they downed Weaver 6-4. It was Piedmont’s second win over the Bearcats in the tournament.

Piedmont coach Matt Deerman said that overall the Bulldogs had played well in the tournament but four bad innings were their undoing.

“That was probably the peak of our season which is what you want to do but we waited too long to get there,” Deerman said.

One of those bad innings came against White Plains. Piedmont led 4-1 entering the bottom of the sixth inning then allowed eight runs in the White Plains half of the sixth after the first two Wildcats reached on Piedmont errors.

Piedmont took a 3-0 lead in the top of the second. Hilarie Hincy and Kayla Allen reached on singles then scored when the Wildcats committed an error. Tracy Freeman’s single drove in Brittany Holloway with the third run. In the top of the sixth, Sara Beth Minton doubled and scored on another White Plains error. Raven Prater’s double was Piedmont’s only other hit.

In the 6-4 in over Weaver, Piedmont grabbed an early 2-0 lead in the top of the second when Freeman and Brea Dixon walked and scored. Freeman came home on an error and Dixon on a ground out by Prater. Ahead 2-1, the Bulldogs added three runs in the fifth. Allen’s bases loaded triple to right center scored Minton, Prater and Hincy. In the seventh, Prater scored again on Allen’s sacrifice fly. Allen gave up five hits and two earned runs with four strikeouts.

Against Glencoe, Piedmont scored its only run in the seventh. Holloway doubled, moved to third on a passed ball and scored on an illegal pitch call.

“We put the ball in play and had chances to score in almost every inning. We just couldn’t put anything together,” Deerman said.

Allen allowed eight hits and four earned runs.