Today's Sports

 Chiefland’s seven seniors, all starters during the regular season, were honored during senior night on April 21. Pictured, front row, from left, are P.J. Allen, Josh Martinez and Jacob Reidy. Back row, from left, are Parrish Parnell, Brent Slaughter, Bo Beauchamp and Quis Green.    

Seniors Kaylin Hastings and Lyndsie Stalvey hugged while holding back tears. Classmate Amber Richardson was completely exhausted. Junior Taylore Fuller simply looked furious, like someone had just stolen her dog, Gator.

Clearly, it was an emotional end to an emotional rollercoaster ride for the 5-2A District tournament title. After 10 innings and nearly two and half hours, second-seeded Chiefland finally succumbed 4-3 against top-seeded P.K. Yonge in Gainesville.

Stride early, swing late. Down to his team’s final strike and final out, that’s what Cole Parks did. He adjusted to a hanging breaking ball and crushed it over the left field fence to lift Chiefland to an 8-5 win at Trenton on Friday.

The victory locked up a No. 2 seed for the Indians in next week’s district 2A-5 tournament in Trenton. They open against No. 7 Dixie County at 4:30 p.m. on Monday.

Less than a minute after delivering the final pitch of Chiefland's biggest win, Amber Richardson's mind wasn't on softball. Instead, she was making sure someone grabbed her baby's bag that was left under an old, wooden bench behind the backstop.

Richardson's teammates still were jumping around high-fiving after the home win against Suwannee. Richardson isn't like most carefree teenagers. She plays basketball and softball, but she's also mom to three-year-old Destiny Nicole Richardson.