Cierra Thompson’s treatment of her softball guests from Bandera, April 1, was decidedly underhanded, and no April Fool’s jokes could have been more painful. Cierra was sensational in firing a no-hitter and striking out 17 Lady Bulldogs in Llano’s 4-1 win.

There wasn’t anything “screwball” about the proceedings, but Thompson’s screwball is what befuddled Bandera which hit the ball in fair territory only six times.

“When you’re pitching overhand,” Jackets head coach Brian Cottle explained, “the screwball goes down and away, but when you’re throwing a softball, it goes up and away,” and, oh, did it go away from Bulldog batters.

Making her pitch: Cierra fanned ten in a row between the second inning and the fifth; she faced 25 hopeful hitters, four over the minimum in a seven inning game; Kayla Reynolds can tell college scouts she was the only visitor to hit the ball out of the infield.

It must have been a high-pulse moment when the Bandera batters were standing in and watching the senior hurler rotating the big (but not big-enough) yellow ball down her right side, with her right finger tips, in menacing fashion, and preparing to throw unhittable heat.

“I had it tonight,” Thompson said in a modest voice, and no one would offer a rebuttal, anyway. “They were swinging at pitches that were moving. Everything was clicking.” Not exactly. She admitted she was tiring as the game progressed, “because I haven’t pitched that much in a long time.”

Oh, yes, there was some (not much) offense in this game, too. In the second inning, Cierra (who else?) followed a walk to Leslie Weihs and Kelsie Simpson reaching on an error with a single to centerfield.

Both runners scored. One out later, Lauryn Looney walked, and one out after that, Chelsea Montgomery slammed a two-run double to left center.

Llano had all the runs it would get, and it only totaled four hits on the night as Bandera was in an arms race.

“We used three pitchers with three different speeds,” Bulldogs’ head coach Roy Klein revealed, “and it worked pretty well, but Thompson was too much. She is so tall (5 feet, 11 inches) that when she releases the ball she’s about two feet closer to the plate than anyone else we’ve seen. She’s the fastest pitcher in the district.”

Swings and Misses: Sarah Sistrunk got on base in the second inning when she swung at a ball in the dirt, and it got by catcher, Jordana Miiller. It was the third strike; Sistrunk made it to first on the wild pitch, but that’s still a strikeout, so Thompson registered three in the inning and the Bulldogs made four outs. Is that “striking out the side?”

Bandera’s Kelsey Word and Reynolds were safe on errors in the fifth inning. They were tough plays to make and tough “error-over-hit” calls by Cottle, who is also the official scorer. “It’s hard to stand out there all night behind Cierra while she’s striking out everybody,” Cottle noted, in defense of the defense.

The Bulldogs’ run came in the seventh inning on CT’s only walk, two ground outs and another (we forgive you) wild pitch. The contest ended, appropriately enough, with a strikeout, and the Jackets improved to 4-0 in district, and they collected their 11th 25-3A win in a row, dating back to the third district game of the season in 2007.

The coach’s closing comment on his pitcher’s performance: “phenomenal.”