By Angie Ledbetter

The No. 4-ranked South Panola Lady Tigers (15-3 overall, 3-1 district) slow pitch team finished the regular season, falling to Cleveland 4-2 Thursday.

The Lady Tigers finished second in Division 2 while Grenada, the defending back-to-back state champions finished first. The Mississippi High School Association Slow Pitch round one playoffs will start Tuesday.

The Lady Tigers will travel to Tupelo to take on the Lady Golden Wave who finished first in Division 1 while Columbus is second. In district three, Madison Central is first while Clinton is runner up. Division 4 winner is Brandon and Winfield is second.

On October 9, the two bracket winners will play in the second round of playoffs.

In the game against Cleveland, the Lady Tigers had seven hits in seven innings. They had two errors and left 10 on base.

Cleveland had seven hits, five errors and left none on base.

The Lady Tigers scored their two runs in the top of the first inning.

Lead off batter Christa Brown singled to left field. With one out, third baseman Meri Morgan Fortune singled sending Brown to second. First baseman Danielle Townsend singled sending Brown home and advancing Fortune to second for an RBI  (run batted in).

With two outs, left fielder Crystal Contreras hit a single, picking up an RBI when Fortune scored the second run in the game by the Lady Tigers.

Going into the bottom of the fourth, the Lady Tigers had a 2-0 lead but Cleveland came out hitting and scored four runs to take the lead for good.

They had two singles, two triples and two walks.       

Picking up hits for the Lady Tigers were Christa Brown, Amanda Ivy, Townsend, Chresha Brown, Contreras, Winfield and Marissa McDaniel.

The Lady Tigers will play today at Tupelo High School with the first game starting at 4 p.m. followed by the second game. The third game, if necessary, will be played, after the first game.