PEARL — After ridding of postseason nemesis Simpson Academy last Saturday afternoon in an elimination game at the MAIS Class AA State Tournament, the Adams County Christian School Lady Rebels were able to keep their season going.

That was the good news. The bad news was they had to play their next elimination game against a highly-motivated group of Lady Rebels from Leake Academy Monday morning.

After losing to South State champion Silliman Institute last Saturday afternoon, Leake Academy took its frustrations out on ACCS as the defending state champion Lady Rebels defeated the Lady Rebels from Natchez 10-0 in five innings.

“It was pretty close through the first three innings,” ACCS head coach Forrest Foster said. “Then in the (bottom of) the fourth, we walked the first two (batters), then they had a few base hits and we had a couple of errors. It was close until they had that one big inning.”

ACCS had its opportunities to put runs on the scoreboard, but was not able to take advantage of them. The ‘visiting’ Lady Rebels left five runners on base through the first three innings, including the bases loaded in the top of the third.

“We left runners on base again like we normally do,” Foster said.

However, Leake Academy could just as well have been leading by more than 3-0 after three innings of play. Those Lady Rebels, the ‘home’ team in this game, left six runners on base in that span.

Leake Academy finally broke the game open by plating six runs in the bottom of the fourth inning to go ahead 9-0 and ended the game by way of the 10-run-after-five-innings mercy run with one run in the bottom of the fifth.

Taylor Perkins went the distance for ACCS, giving up six earned runs on nine hits and two walks and she struck out one batter. The Lady Rebels had just three hits in the game with Ashleigh Williams going 2-for-3.

Despite being eliminated from the State Tournament, Foster said the Lady Rebels did better than a lot of people expected them to do this season.

“We got a lot farther along than anyone could have imagined. We were overachievers this year,” Foster said. “We played extremely well when the chips were down. I’m extremely proud of my girls.”

Foster added that this was the first time in school history that ACCS’s fast-pitch softball team advanced to the State Tournament. The 18 wins and 19 losses were the most in each category in the program’s history.