Hallsville beats Kilgore, 6-0, in season finale

SENIOR FAREWELL - Kilgore High School's softball team honored seniors Shelby Savony (above) and Amanda Mixon (right, both in uniform) Friday night. The Lady Bulldogs finished their season Saturday. A loss wasn't the way that first-year head coach Cassie Newell wanted her Kilgore High School softball team to end the season.

But she surely couldn't complain too much about the Lady Bulldogs' stretch run near season's end.

Kilgore finished its 2007 softball season on Saturday at Hallsville with a 6-0 defeat. But the Lady Bulldogs, playing with a young lineup this year after seasons at or near the top of the district, managed to win three of their last four games - all three consecutively over Nacogdoches, Jacksonville and Pine Tree.

And two of those teams (Nac and PT) had beaten Kilgore in the first round of district play.

"You're supposed to peak at the end of the year," Newell said today, "and even though we weren't playing for anything down the stretch, I thought we did get better."

Last week on Friday, the Lady 'Dogs honored their only two seniors this year - Shelby Savony and Amanda Mixon - with a senior night ceremony before beating Pine Tree.

Photos by Lester Murray "Losing Shelby (to graduation) will be a big hit, and Mixon, too - she's played well in the outfield," the coach said, noting that she hopes some things the younger players learned along the way this year will help them in the future.

On Saturday at Hallsville, Kilgore got a 2-for-3 performance from University of-Texas-bound Savony in her final game as a Lady Bulldog. She doubled and singled.

Also, Mixon had a hit in her final game for Kilgore. Brittany Gary had a hit as well.

Kilgore managed to get both Savony and Whitney Brown to third over the course of the game, but couldn't score on either occasion, breaking their three-game winning streak.

District opponents the Lady 'Dogs defeated this year were Jacksonville (twice), Nac and Pine Tree.