By KEVIN ECKLEBERRY

Daily News

That’s two region games, and two one-run losses for the LaGrange Lady Grangers.

After falling to Central-Carroll 3-2 in its first Region 5-AAAA game, LaGrange’s softball team lost to visiting Cedartown 4-3 on Tuesday.

The good news for the Lady Grangers (3-4 overall) is that they’re still early in their region schedule, so they’ve got plenty of time to get things turned around.

LaGrange’s next region game will be on Aug. 20 at Troup.

In Tuesday’s game, LaGrange had the tying run on third base with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning, but the game ended on a groundout.

That was a familiar theme for LaGrange, which had plenty of base runners, but was unable to score except for a three-run third inning.

“I felt like offensively we had runners on and we were moving them, we just couldn’t put anything together,” LaGrange head coach Gabby Heath said. “We had line drives that wouldn’t drop. Jacee (Marable) hit the ball well, but just right to people.”

Things did fall into place in the third inning when LaGrange plated three runs to take a 3-1 lead.

Mariana Ceja was hit by a pitch leading off, Kirsten Williams reached on a bunt single, and Madison Dennis lined the ball to right field for an RBI single.

Two batters later, Abby Vanhoose came through with a two-run single, and LaGrange led 3-1.

Cedartown tied it in the top of the fourth on a two-run home run by Reagan Peek, and it took the lead with a single run in the top of the seventh.

LaGrange threatened to pull even in the bottom of the seventh.

Macee Stone led off with a walk, and she moved to second on a Ceja sacrifice bunt before making it to third on a Williams groundout.

With two outs, Dennis hit the ball hard to the right side of the infield, but the ball was fielded cleanly by the second baseman, who threw a strike to first  to end the game.

Vanhoose and Williams each had two hits for LaGrange, and Dennis had a hit.

Smith pitched the complete game, holding Cedartown to seven hits and three earned runs with four strikeouts.

LaGrange host Harris County on Wednesday before participating in the GADC tournament at East Coweta on Friday and Saturday.

LaGrange’s first game will be against East Coweta, which has won two consecutive state championships in the state’s largest classification.

“I’m excited about it,” Heath said. “That’s what I told them. You’ll see what some of the best players in the state look like. You’ll get to see that, and face that, and it’ll prepare you if you do get to Columbus (for the state quarterfinals).”