DAPHNE, Alabama — The Fairhope Lady Pirates opened the 6A Area 3 race with a big 4-2 win in a misty fog at Daphne on Tuesday night.

Fairhope righthander Grey Adams went the distance, holding the Lady Trojans to four-hits with 12 strikeouts, a walk and her own RBI with a solo home run at the plate.

Lady Trojans starter Baylee Lucassen scattered five hits and suffered a pair of run-aided errors as Fairhope built a 4-0 lead before DHS got on the board.

Fairhope head coach Jonathan Heflin was pleased with the result and how his team got it.

“Grey did a fantastic job in the circle for us tonight and all the way around. Controlled the strike zone, had all her pitches working and stayed ahead in the count. Can’t ask for anything more. She’s been swinging the stick real well also in practice and making solid contact and she caught one in the right spot and got a big hit for us and that kept the momentum going our way.

"I’m ecstatic with the win. To start out the season 2-0, to start out the area 1-0 and to beat a quality team like Daphne is a pretty good start. We respect them a lot. They are going to fight you for everything and so it's a nice win, especially to come up here and get a win at Daphne.”

Megan Dowdy led off the game with a triple and scored on the first of two singles by Hannah Qualls in the top of the first inning.

A Daphne error and a sacrifice fly by Hannah Brown led to a run scored by Catherine Knight in the second, another error and an RBI single by Lauren Ponder made it 3-0 in the fifth and Adams’ homer capped her lead in the sixth.

Lady Trojans short-stop Ashlynn Kimbro tripled in Peyton Grantham who walked and Meredeth Mackin who singled in the bottom half of the sixth to make it 4-2. Lucassen and Brittany Cooks also singled for Daphne.

Daphne had only one senior last year and a mix of eighth-grade and freshmen starters. Daphne head coach Lawrence Yelding said inexperience is not the problem it was last year and a lack of passion and confidence seem to be the bigger issue at this point early in the year.

“Can’t use the excuse that we’re young anymore,” he said. “Can’t. Won’t. Tonight Fairhope just wanted it more than we did. Right now they have to be able to respond to adverse situations and stop waiting for someone else to step up and make a play instead of making it themselves. I told them I’m not going to use the excuse of age. That was last year. They played almost 50 games last year as freshmen and now they have to play a little bit better as 10th graders.

“Need a lot of work to do to get better. Right now we’re not very good. Yes, we’re still relatively young. But we’re still making mistakes we made last year and that’s not a sign of youth, it’s a sign of not focusing and working to get better. Need to get more out of practice and play with more intensity, more heart and fire. I thought Baylee played all right, but we had too many errors behind her and that was enough for the difference tonight. But we’ll keep working.”