The Sealy Lady Tiger softball team notched its first win, 16-0 in three innings, within District 24-4A last Friday on the road in Brookshire over the Royal Lady Falcons.

The visitors nearly batted around twice in the first inning and finished with 12 runs on the board before freshman Haylie Eder stepped into the pitcher’s circle for a 1-2-3 inning. Lady Tiger Head Coach Brittney Whitehead said Friday’s defensive performance was one the team had been looking for.

“Our defense has been struggling so Antreece (Coleman’s) diving catch at first, us turning a double play, that’s really big for us to gain some confidence on defense because that’s really been our downfall so far this season; we’ve given up too many unearned runs and it’s due to our defensive errors,” Whitehead said postgame. “But those two plays were super big and exciting and I hope it got the girls turned around for the district games to come.”

Sealy got the job done at the plate as well, although it saw a different-paced pitcher.

“We earned our runs, we didn’t run up the score outside of us hitting the ball so that was a good job on their part and we had to wait on that pitcher, it’s a little different from what we’re used to so the fact they could make that adjustment at the plate was a big deal,” Whitehead said.

The Lady Tigers were set to close the first round of district play against Bellville earlier this week on the road Tuesday and the head coach said there was a little more on the line this time around outside of the regular crosstown rivalry.

“Bellville’s always a competition regardless of the standings, stats, records; they’re always our big competition but they truly are our competition now because we’re battling for that third-fourth spot going into playoffs,” Whitehead said. “I think we’re going to have the ball put in play on both sides, from what I’ve seen both of us played Navasota with highscoring games.”