Morgan Academy saw its softball season come to a close Friday night in a 7-5 loss to Pike Liberal Arts in the Alabama Independent School Association state softball tournament, but the Senators didn’t go down without a fight.

Trailing 4-0 in the fifth inning, Morgan pieced together a tremendous rally by scoring the game’s next five runs. Unfortunately for the Senators, Pike came back with two runs of its own to steal back the momentum and ultimately the game.

“They hit the ball when they had to and we didn’t,” said Morgan Academy coach Ed Miller. “We had the bases loaded and made a base running mistake. We had two on again and couldn’t bring them in, had the bases loaded again and couldn’t bring them in. That’s going to cost you.”

Kendall Veach, one of a handful of seniors playing their final game in a Morgan uniform, hit a two-run home run to start the rally in the fifth. In the next inning, Morgan loaded the bases and Veach was walked to score another run. Jordan Averette’s single scored two runs to give the Senators’ their first lead of the game, but Pike rallied right back.

“You’ve got to be able to hit the ball and we didn’t. To be honest, I didn’t know what to do to fix it,” Miller said.

Miller joked that he’d fired the team’s hitting coach after the game, but he was referencing himself. However, barring a change of plans, it was his final game coaching the Senators. Miller said all season that the 2015 campaign would be his last coaching stop.

The Senators hoped to send him off with a state championship, especially after a day that started with such promise.

Morgan rallied from 3-0 down to defeat Bessemer Academy 5-4 in its opener. The Senators scored two runs on an error by Bessemer in the bottom of the sixth to reclaim the lead for good and held on from there. Miller said after the game it was the kind of win he hoped could spark the Senators.

“We ended up fired up and I know it’s a long time between our first game and our second game, but I hope our momentum keeps rolling,” Miller said after the game.

Morgan Academy’s next opponent, Glenwood, stopped that momentum right in its tracks. Glenwood dominated Morgan 5-0 in a game where the Senators had only two hits. Hope Gullatt brought in three runs for the Gators and scored a run herself. Meanwhile, Glenwood’s McKenna Gillespie shut the Senators’ offense completely down. She struck out six batters and kept Morgan on its toes all day. For the Senators, that would become a recurring theme in the final game of the night against Pike Liberal Arts.

Miller said last month’s unseasonable weather kept his team off the field a lot and somewhere during that layoff the Senators lost the ability to consistently hit the ball.

“The teams that are playing in the other bracket, we beat them all season and we hit the ball great all season,” Miller said. “When the rain started hitting us, we stopped being able to practice and we couldn’t ever get the hitting back.”

Scottie Brown from The Troy Messenger contributed to this story.