From cleats to neckline, Hickory painted the junior Battlefield softball catcher shades of dusty tan and muddy brown during the Bobcats' 4-2 state tournament championship loss last Saturday.

Hickory dipped its paintbrush from the left of home plate to the top of first base. It walloped Liddle when she dove for a foul ball in the fourth inning or beat a throw to first base in the top of the seventh with a head-first slide that left her belly down and red-faced along the base path.

And while moral victories do not earn the biggest trophies, everyone in the Bobcat dugout saw what the heart of a Battlefield champion looked like.

"I didn't have a substitute for her at the end of the game there," said Bobcat coach Joe Schelzo. "Didn't matter. There was no way she was coming out of that game."

Battlefield vs. Hickory
Liddle drove in her team’s only run (Jessica Anglin) prior to the seventh inning with a bases-loaded sacrifice fly to the warning track in left field during the top of the third.

Trailing 4-1 with two outs in the final inning, she lined a 3-0 strike off pitcher Jenn Gniadek’s glove that dribbled along the infield.

A day of crouching behind home plate in a heat wave while wearing catchers’ gear, combined with an all-out run to first base left her nearly motionless at the bag.

After receiving a drink, a wet towel and a much-needed hair tie, Liddle was back and moved to second base when Kelsie Scott took a pitch off her foot.

“She just leaves everything on that field,” said graduating third-baseman Kaitlyn Sileo of her rising-senior catcher. “And today, she hit that ball and she knew that she had to get to first base. So she gave everything she had with her...and she literally left everything on the field.”

First-baseman Shannon Cleary then brought Liddle home with a sure-shot single to center field.

But the Hawks gunned out Scott at third to end the game.

“She’s an aggressive runner,” said Schelzo of Scott. “We’re always looking to put pressure on them.”

Battlefield struggled in its usually best area: pitching.

Starter Brittany Black exited due to heat exhaustion after just one and one-third innings. She loaded the bases in the bottom of the first with two outs on two walks and a hit batter. Then she hit another batter to give Hickory a 1-0 lead.

That advantage increased to 2-0 when second baseman Rachel West cranked an 0-2 RBI to center field the next inning.

One pitch later, Black called time out, threw her glove on the ground between third base and the Battlefield dugout, and darted off the field.

“She really wasn’t feeling well today at all,” said Liddle of her starting pitcher. “Everyone has bad days. It was getting to the point where her safety was in concern.”

Senior ace pitcher Megan Sutphin shut down the Hawks in the second but gave up a manufactured run in the third and a solo home run over the center field wall to Gniadek in the fifth inning.

Sutphin eventually regained her composure, struck out two batters and threw out the last batter of the fifth before whiffing the side in the sixth.

A day after receiving her diploma, though, Sutphin understood that it was do-or-die time for her and Battlefield.

“‘I have to do this for my team right now,” the senior said, recalling her thoughts on entering the sixth inning. “‘I have to pick her up, right now. It has to be done.’”

Battlefield’s journey to the state tournament finale has been building over the years.

The Bobcats won only one game in their introductory 2005 season. A run through Cedar Run District tournament in 2006 fell short of a trophy and in 2007, they had a 1-0 exit in the semifinals of regions after claiming the district tournament title.

This year, just making it to states wasn’t enough. They topped second-place Loudoun Valley to clinch the regular season district championship, beat them again to win the tournament championship and then topped the same team once again for the regional win.

A controversial 1-0 rain-out win over Midlothian in the state quarterfinals paved the way for an 11-1 blowout over Woodside in the state semis.

Battlefield vs. Woodside
In that game, Battlefield cranked eight hits and capitalized on the Wolverines’ six errors while starting pitcher Black beat the heat.

“We’re used to throwing in Colorado every summer, so I guess it wasn’t that big of a deal,” she said after that game, noting that her off-speed curve worked well.

Rightfielder Kelsey Sayres made the difference in the game with a two-run homer in the second and an RBI single that she turned into a triple on an error in the fourth.

“I kind of got frustrated after I was told to bunt and I didn’t get my bunt down, so I just relaxed and did my thing,” said Sayres. “When you relax and hit the ball, it goes so much farther.”

Third-baseman Kaitlyn Sileo ended her senior season along with Sutphin as the only two players on the Bobcats to remember the team’s horrid first year. The Christopher Newport University-bound graduate wanted to leave her team with a time-honored message: Never give in.

“There was a time in the game where we kind of gave up, our heads were getting down and our energy was dying down, and it just shows in that last inning how much just one hit can get us all up and one hit can change an entire game,” she said.