By Ross Johnson

Sports Writer

COLUMBUS - It was a disappointing start to the postseason for the Troup High softball team.

The Lady Tigers, who earned a No. 1 seed in the Region 2-AAA tournament in the regular season, dropped a pair of contests to Shaw and Columbus Tuesday to be the first team ousted in the tournament.

Troup lost to Shaw 2-0 in eight innings and fell to Columbus 3-0, giving the Lady Tigers a No. 4 seed heading into the state tournament beginning next Tuesday.

The Troup defense played superb, especially ace pitcher Victoria Hull.

Hull, a senior, notched 14 strikeouts in the loss to Shaw and four in the Columbus match-up.

It was the Lady Tigers’ offense that couldn’t get the job done.

The Lady Tigers had their chances, but they were unable to come through with a clutch hit.

“It’s not like we needed a big hit, just a single,” said Troup head coach George Gilbert, who is in his first year coaching the Lady Tigers. “We just needed to make a play, and we weren’t able to.”

In the Shaw match-up, an outstanding performance by Hull was negated when the Lady Raiders scored on RBIs from Kristen McTaggart and Libby Oxford in the eighth inning.

In extra innings, each team on offense gets an automatic runner at second.

Shaw’s leadoff batter was called safe at first on a groundout, giving the Lady Raiders runners at the corners with no outs.

After surging ahead 2-0, the Shaw defense turned a double play in the bottom of the inning to deflate the Lady Tigers’ hopes of rallying.

It didn’t help that Shaw pitcher Ashlee Slouchick didn’t allow any breathing room for Troup batters. Slouchick notched seven strikeouts and held the Lady Tigers to just five hits.

“That was a tough loss,” Gilbert said. “We had chances to win, and we pitched well. We just couldn’t time (Slouchik’s) pitching. It threw us off.”

After Northside defeated Columbus 2-0 in the opening round, the Blue Devils and Lady Tigers both needed wins to keep playing in the tournament.

Troup, which lost to Columbus 10-2 in the previous matchup between the teams, again couldn’t score.

The game was scoreless into the fourth inning, when the Blue Devils scored on a wild pitch.

Columbus scored twice more in the bottom of the sixth.

Troup had just four hits in the loss.

“I’d attribute (the lackluster offense) to both good pitching and bat batting,” Gilbert said. “Nobody came through for us.”

Luckily for the Lady Tigers, a new season is beginning next week.

While a No. 4 seed in the state tournament makes things tougher, Gilbert is confident his team will be able to work on its mistakes Tuesday and be ready to play next week.

The Lady Tigers’ opponent is not known, but it will be a best-of-three series at a Region 3-AAA school.

“There’s another season coming up, and we’re excited,” Gilbert said. “We’re going to practice on our errors and we’ll be ready to go.”