By Brad Greer

Since moving to Class AA last season, the North Delta Lady Green Wave softball team has reeled off 15 straight district victories. North Delta put that streak on the line as they took on  Marshall Academy Tuesday  on ‘Senior Night’ at Green Wave Field.

Led by senior right-hander Mary Jane Morrow, North Delta jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the second inning then held off a late Patriot rally to garner a 7-4 win while running their winning streak to 13 games and capturing their second straight Division 1-2A championship.

North Delta (18-3-1) will begin defense of their North AA State title Saturday morning at Winston Academy in Louisville against District 3-AA runner-up Canton Academy at 9:00 a.m. with the winner taking on District 2-AA winner Carroll at 10:45. The North Delta/ Canton loser will drop into the losers’ bracket to face off against the Kirk/ Oak Hill loser at 12:30 p.m..

The championship game will be set for Monday with the top two teams advancing to the State AA playoffs next week in Ridgeland.

Erin Snider’s three-run inside-the-park homerun in the bottom of the first gave North Delta a 3-0 lead. The Wave extended its lead to 6-0 in the next inning by scoring three runs on three Marshall errors. Mary Jane Morrow, Vicky Johnson and Julianna Morrow  reached on errors before Bradi Beard drilled a two-run double to give North Delta a 6-0 advantage. Hannah Heafner got the rally started by scoring on an error for the first run of the inning.

Marshall responded with four runs in top of the third to close the gap to 6-4. The big blow of the inning came when Chelsey Gilliam drilled a two-out two-run dinger off Morrow that cleared the left-center field fence. The inning ended one batter later when Julianna Morrow made an outstanding over-the-shoulder catch in shallow right field to retire the side.

The score stayed that way until bottom of the fifth when North Delta added a huge insurance run on Juilanna Morrow’s two-out single to score courtesy runner Maribeth Johns for the final margin of victory.

Mary Jane Morrow earned the pitching victory by giving up one earned run over six innings while surrendering three hits and fanning four batters.

North Delta recorded four hits in the contest as Beard doubled, Hastings Neal and Julianna Morrow singled while Snider added a homerun.

The Green Wave kept its winning streak alive Monday night with a 7-6 come-from-behind win over Bayou Academy in Cleveland. North Delta trailed 5-0 before erupting for five runs in the top of the fifth to tie the game. The Wave added a pair of runs in the top of the sixth before the Colts scored one run in the bottom of the stanza.