Losing to Blessed Trinity 2-1 in the Class AAA state championship game last season still stings for the Sandy Creek Lady Patriots.

Creek is in a new classification, AAAA, but its goal remains the same — get back to the state championship game and win it.

Based on the way it has been playing of late, Creek could do just that.

The Lady Patriots are coming on strong at just the right time, winning their seventh consecutive game Tuesday, 8-0 in five innings over Region 5A-AAAA rival Fayette County in Fayetteville.

Red-hot Creek (14-4-1, 5-1 region) hasn’t allowed a run in its last three games. The Lady Patriots currently sit in third place in the region, one game behind second-place Northgate and first-place (and top-ranked) Whitewater, with less than one month remaining in the regular season.

Creek lost to Whitewater 5-3 in August in the Up the Creek Tournament, and its game against Northgate in August was rained out. It will play Northgate Sept. 24 and Whitewater Oct. 2.

“We want to do well in the region,” Creek coach Lisa Pearce said. “We want to peak at sectionals, and we really want to get that ticket to state. I think getting back to state and the finals is [the girls’] goal. It’s a very lofty goal. I think anything less than that will be a disappointment.”

Hannah Braswell silenced Fayette’s bats, striking out 14 and allowing only one hit in five innings. And Creek’s bats took care of the rest, pounding out 12 hits.

Andrea Dalton (3-for-3, three RBI) and Meagan Sitton (3-for-4, one RBI) accounted for half of Creek’s hits.

The game was essentially over in the first inning, with Creek holding a 3-0 lead before Fayette could record the first out of the game.

Sitton (3-for-4) led off with a standup double, and Candace Dunn and Dalton followed with back-to-back singles. Dalton’s single drove in Sitton from third.

Then the first of five errors for Fayette led to Creek’s third run of the inning — an apparent harmless fly ball hit by Kayla Awbrey that dropped into right field and scored Dunn.

Creek’s hit parade continued in the second inning: Sitton hit her second double in as many at-bats to score Kayla Folds, who had singled, and, two batters later, Dalton lined a two-run single to center field to put the Lady Patriots in front 6-0.

Creek added two more runs in the inning on back-to-back fielding errors.

After walking BriAnna Redman to start the fifth, Braswell struck out three consecutive batters to end the inning and bring the game-ending mercy rule into effect.

Braswell’s strikeout performance was impressive; she struck out three batters each in the second through fifth innings. She walked three.

Fayette’s lone hit off of Braswell was a first-inning single by Chasity Welch.

Braswell and Folds have been a dominant right-handed pitching duo for Creek this season.

“With our pitching, we’re taking the approach that every game our pitchers are going to work on something,” Pearce said. “...Our pitching has really stepped up.”

One positive for Fayette occurred in the fourth, when pitcher Candace Newberry worked her way out of a one-out, bases-loaded jam by inducing Folds to ground out back to the mound and Sitton to ground out to first.

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