WVSSAC State Softball Tournament<\/p>\n
By Ben Anderson, FM88 Sports Director<\/p>\n
June 3, 2026<\/p>\n
SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WMUL-FM) \u2014 No. 6 seeded Parkersburg South kept its season alive, eliminating the defending Class AAAA champion, Cabell Midland Knights 3-0, at Little Creek Park in Charleston, W. Va in an elimination game on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n
The Knights were coming off a 3-0 loss to Morgantown earlier in the morning.<\/p>\n
Anniston Shelton delivered big for the Patriots starting at the plate. In the top of the first inning, she crushed a two-run moonshot into right field to give Parkersburg South a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n
She continued her dominance in the circle as well, going the distance allowing just one hit, with 11 strikeouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny pitcher that gets a couple of runs and you know that your stuff\u2019s on and you know that you\u2019re moving it and you\u2019re hitting your spots, that gives huge confidence,\u201d Parkersburg South head coach Tim Burch said. \u201cAnnie (Shelton) is definitely a bulldog when she steps into that circle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cabell Midland, after scoring nine runs in the tournament opener against Jefferson yesterday, was held scoreless through two games and only achieved two base hits.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely not the outcome we wanted,\u201d Cabell Midland head coach Herman Beckett said. \u201cIf anybody told me, that we would have played two balls and not scored a run, I\u2019d have said you\u2019re crazy. In fact, I\u2019d have bet my house we would have scored some runs. The pitching was good, the defense was good enough, we just didn\u2019t put the bat on the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Patriots added another run in the fourth with an RBI single from Bryleigh Pickens.<\/p>\n
The Knights went to Brendelynn Minton to start in the circle due to the WVSSAC State Tournament rule of pitchers only allowed to pitch 14 innings a day. Drea Watts pitched seven innings in the loss against Morgantown, and the Knights would have had to play a third game today if it picked up the victory.<\/p>\n
Beckett said that the format needs to be changed and that playing three games in a day in unrealistic in any circumstance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think you can play three games in a day in the regular season,\u201d Beckett said. \u201cThen you get up here and you have to play three games. That\u2019s something that going to be looked into. It\u2019s not fair, because it put us in a position that we had to try to get it where Drea (Watts) could pitch in both games.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Parkersburg South, the win proves that the underdog Patriots have a chance to run the gauntlet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got a legitimate shot,\u201d Burch said, \u201cIf we can beat the number one, we can beat anybody. As long as we play hard and we stay together, we do the fundamentals. In football, you got the offense, defense, and special teams. In baseball, and softball, it\u2019s pitching, it\u2019s base running, it\u2019s hitting, and it\u2019s fielding. You put those four together and you\u2019re going to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Knights lose three key seniors with Watts who will pitch at Bowling Green University, Becca Conrad who will play shortstop at Syracuse, and Mackenzie Kessell.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrea probably put records up there that will probably never be broken in the school,\u201d Beckett said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to say something real special. Her, Becca, and Kenzie are special people. Becca and Drea have done it for four years. Kenzie come in this year and added a bat to the team. She\u2019s been special. Becca and Drea have a place in my heart, they absolutely do, they strap them up every day and come to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the loss, Cabell Midland fell to 26-6. Parkersburg South improved to 21-9 and will play No. 2 University with a bid at the state title game on the line tonight.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
PARKERSBURG SOUTH 200 100 0 \u2013 3 4 1<\/p>\n
CABELL MIDLAND 000 000 0 \u2013 0 1 1<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Pitching: PS: Shelton, & Corbin; CB: Minton, Watts (5), & McCallister<\/p>\n
Hitting: PS: Shelton 2-4, R, 2 RBI HR; CB: Conrad 1-3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WVSSAC State Softball Tournament By Ben Anderson, FM88 Sports Director June 3, 2026 SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WMUL-FM) \u2014 No. 6 seeded Parkersburg South kept its season alive, eliminating the defending Class AAAA champion, Cabell Midland Knights 3-0, at Little Creek Park in Charleston, W. Va in an elimination game on Wednesday evening. The Knights were<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1052,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,5],"tags":[1779,1780,1784,1788,1789,12,1786,1798,1799,1800,1783,1778],"class_list":["post-4896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-wmul-sports","tag-cabell-midland-high-school","tag-cabell-midland-softball","tag-high-school-softball","tag-parkersburg-south-high-school","tag-parkersburg-south-softball","tag-softball","tag-wvssac","tag-wvssac-aaaa","tag-wvssac-aaaa-softball","tag-wvssac-aaaa-softball-tournament","tag-wvssac-softball","tag-wvssac-softball-tournament"],"acf":[],"fimg_url":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1052"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4896"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4897,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4896\/revisions\/4897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}