In the battle of the Lady Rebels, Adams County Christian School jumped out to a big lead, only to see Amite School Center come back and tie the score before ACCS scored three times in the fifth inning for an 8-5 win Monday afternoon at the ACCS softball field.

ACCS pitcher Charmaine Reagan was the winning pitcher, giving up four earned runs and 12 hits in seven innings, but allowed only three hits in the final four innings as the homestanding Lady Rebels snapped a two-game losing streak to improve to 10-4 overall.

Reagan needed only five pitches to retire the side to start the game, then her teammates helped her out by scoring five times in the bottom of the first inning.

Brandi Case led things off with a single, then Holli Hankins tripled to center field to score Case. Hankins then scored on a Riana Flynn single. After April Boyd walked, Alesia Brown hit a fly ball to left-centerfield that ASC’s Kayla Baker dropped, allowing Flynn and Boyd to score and Brown to advance to second base.

Kelsie Messer then singled to advance Brown to third and Kristin Cox hit a sacrifice fly to second baseman Brittany Walsh that allowed Brown to score.

ASC (8-6) got three of those runs back on six hits, but they were all singles as ACCS’s outfielders, particularly left-centerfielder Hankins and centerfielder Cox, did a good job of holding those hits to one-baggers.

After Janie Stevens’ RBI single cut ACCS’s lead to 5-3 with one out, Baham hit a ground ball to third baseman Boyd for the second out and Boyd then threw out Erin Graves to end the inning.

&uot;Our defense was fine,&uot; said ACCS softball coach Bruce Pickle. &uot;They had some good hits and we made some good catches that could’ve been hits.

After a rough first inning, ASC pitcher Megan Seay kept ACCS in check the next three innings, allowing only three hits and no runs.

&uot;I thought we started off hitting the ball well, then we got into a slump in the middle innings,&uot; Pickle said.

ASC then tied the score at five with two runs in the top of the third inning. With Reagan and Seay pitching well and getting good defense behind them, it appeared that the game was heading into extra innings. That was until ACCS broke things open in the bottom of the fifth as a Hankins single scored Meghan Marchbanks, Case scored on a single by Boyd and Hankins scored from second on an error.

Seay was the losing pitcher, allowing six earned runs on 12 hits while walking two in six innings.

ACCS next plays at Huntington beginning at 4 p.m. Friday.