A day after defeating Boyd County 13-10, the Lady Jackets fell to the Lawrence County Lady Bulldogs in their final game of the Cal Ripken Experience in Myrtle Beach, 7-5.

The Lady Jackets fell to Woodford County, Maumee (Ohio) and Pleasure Ridge Park before defeating Boyd County, prior to falling to Lawrence County to go 1-4 on their spring break.

“I think this was a great experience for us,” said Middlesboro coach Petie Gilbert. “It really helped us a lot to get down here and play against some really good competition. It makes it easier to improve when you play really good competition.”

Lawrence County retired the first three Lady Jacket batters, shifting early game momentum their way. The Lady Bulldogs took a quick 3-0 lead after the first inning thanks to four stolen bases and some well-placed hitting.

It wasn’t until the fourth inning that the Lady Jackets were able to answer on a two-run in-the-park home run from Shelby Frazier, bringing the score to 3-2 in favor of Lawrence County. The Lady Bulldogs answered in the fourth inning with one run, extending their lead to 4-2.

Each team added one run in the fifth inning, keeping the scoring margin at two runs in Lawrence County’s favor, 5-3. Lawrence County extended their lead to 7-3 in the sixth inning by adding two runs. The Lady Jackets answered with two runs of their own, bringing the score to 7-5.

After quickly retiring the Lady Bulldog batters in the top of the seventh, the Lady Jackets were unable to come up with any runs in the bottom of the inning and fell to the Lady Bulldogs to finish out their spring break.

“It was nice to get away,” said Gilbert. “I think it was a great experience. We were hitting pretty well before we came down here, we just seemed to struggle on the sticks a little bit. I think that most of it was mental block. We had some errors that we typically don’t make, and it was good for us to see what we were doing wrong and get that stuff corrected before we get too deep into the season.”

In 30 at-bats, the Lady Jackets managed five runs on six hits. Middlesboro was led by Frazier with two runs, one hit and two RBI.

The Lady Jackets move to 5-6 on the season. Their next opponent is the Clay County Tigers at home on Monday at 6 p.m.