The season came to a disappointing end for the Mineral County High softball team on Saturday after the Lady Serpents dropped a doubleheader at Wells and narrowly missed out on the regional playoffs in the process.

Mineral County didn’t go down without a fight, however, as they played the first place Leopards (17-2, 7-0) tight throughout game one on the back of senior pitcher Hailey Lahre. The game was tied 1-1 in the third inning before Wells took control and eventually went on to win 6-4. Lahre pitched six strong innings and struck out seven in her last game in the circle as a Lady Serpent and also connected for a single, triple and two RBIs at the plate. McKenna Cardenas had two of the seven hits for Mineral County, who scored three runs in the seventh before their rally fell short.

Game two went the way of the Leopards as they cruised to a 12-1 victory to finish its conference season undefeated. The Lady Serpents had just three hits in the game, a single by Lahre and a base hit and triple by fellow senior Julieanna Williams.

The losses dropped Mineral County to third place in the 1A Northern League standings, just a game behind Carlin who will represent the conference along with Wells this weekend at the regional tournament at the Leopards home field. Coleville and Smith Valley make up the other part of the four team bracket.

Despite coming up short of the playoffs, first year Mineral County coach Jason Cardenas had plenty of positives to take away from the 2018 softball season.

“Obviously we would like to be still playing, but I think we exceeded our expectations and are already looking forward to next year,” Cardenas said. “I’m very proud of this team and the senior class. They went out and played hard and got better every day. As a coach that’s all you can ask for.”

Mineral County finished the season 8-10 overall and 2-4 in conference play. They will lose four seniors to graduation this spring in Lahre, Williams, Madeline Bennett and Drianna Ditmer.