Peebles rallies past Manchester on walk-off softball win

Josie McGhee came home on a wild pitch in the bottom of the seventh, and Peebles had its comeback, its revenge and its latest statement in the Southern Hills Athletic Conference all in one swing of pressure.

The Lady Indians beat Manchester 3-2 at Peebles High School on the morning of April 18, turning a county matchup into a tension-filled rally that rewarded a team already riding a six-game winning streak. Manchester arrived having lost four of its previous five, but the Lady Hounds looked sharp early and took a 2-0 lead through four innings behind Bayleigh Spires in the circle.

Manchester scored first on Peyton Hayslip’s RBI groundout in the second inning, then added another run when Elliana Applegate doubled home a runner in the third. Kaelyn Musser held Manchester to three hits through four innings, but Peebles had to work for every run once the comeback began.

The Lady Indians finally got on the board in the fifth when freshman Josie McGhee reached on an error, Jerzi Tong singled, and Kendall Myers drove in McGhee to cut the deficit to 2-1. In the sixth, Kendall Young reached on an error, moved up on a bunt by Amryn Carroll, and scored on Myers’ safety squeeze to tie the game. That sequence shifted the pressure squarely onto Manchester, which had controlled the score for most of the game but could not finish the job.

Peebles finished it in the seventh. McGhee led off by reaching safely, then scored the winning run when a wild pitch allowed her to cross the plate and set off the walk-off celebration. MaxPreps later called the result revenge for Manchester’s 11-1 win over Peebles in May 2025, and it left the Lady Indians with another hard-earned mark in a season already defined by narrow wins and steady defense.

The win pushed Peebles to 11-1 in MaxPreps’ April 19 recap and, two days later, to 12-1 after a 19-0 shutout of East Clinton. MaxPreps said Peebles had already won eight games by 11 runs or more and was allowing only 2.6 runs per game, numbers that show how quickly the Lady Indians have become a force in Adams County and across the conference. In the Southeast District’s 2025 softball brackets, Peebles was placed in Division VI and Manchester in Division VII, a reminder that this regular-season meeting carried postseason weight as well as bragging rights.