Oak Glen's Mattie Carney pitches against Weir on Wednesday at the West Virginia Class AA state tournament in South Charleston. (Photo courtesy of WVSSAC)

SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Despite an uneven season, Oak Glen’s softball team, the defending West Virginia Class AA state champions, can still strike fear into opposing teams.

Weir High came into Wednesday’s first round Class AA contest with two regular season wins over the Bears, but that didn’t carry over into the tournament.

Oak Glen produced 14 hits over their rivals and made a statement in a 12-3 win at Little Creek Park’s Rock Field A.

The Golden Bears, the fifth seed in the tournament, improve to 19-11 and will face top-seeded Logan at 9 a.m. in a winner’s bracket game in the double elimination tournament. Logan (22-7) beat eighth-seeded Midland Trail 5-0 in the first game of the day.

Oak Glen’s first three batters in the order had monster games combining for eight of the team’s 14 hits and seven RBIs. Brayley Lash, a former Weir student, had a single, double and triple with five RBIs. Mattie Carney added two singles, a triple and two RBIs. Lead-off hitter Mikalyn Balch had two hits.

At the bottom of the order Marleah Lough had two hits, while Kylie Robinson had a single, triple and two RBIs. Kynslee Landess had a single and three RBIs.

The Bears jumped on the Red Riders with three in the second inning and three in the fourth inning. Weir scored three in the bottom of the fourth to make it a game, but Oak Glen returned fire with one run in the sixth and five in the seventh.

Carney was solid in the circle for the Bears with nine strikeouts and no walks. She threw 93 pitches and 64 for strikes.

Weir’s star pitcher Eliza Utt gave up five earned runs on a day when Weir fielders made six errors in a game which had several rain delays. Utt threw 110 pitches with 80 for strikes. She had five strikeouts and a walk.

Weir was set to play Midland Trail in the evening session in an elimination game. With scattered storms in the area there were significant delays on the the other games scheduled for Wednesday.

No. 3 Sissonville defeated No. 6 Independence 4-2 in a game that ended at 5:30 p.m. No. 7 Lincoln played No. 2 Petersburg in the last first round game of the day session.

Oak Glen will now turn its attention to the top seed. Logan’s Myleigh Adkins threw a no-hitter with 15 strikeouts against Midland Trail. She only threw 79 pitches of which 58 were strikes. She is set to attend NCAA Div. II North Georgia in the fall.

The winner of the Oak Glen-Logan game will play again at 6:30 p.m. against the winner of the other winner’s bracket game.

The state tournament wraps up on Friday with the final loser’s bracket game at 10:30 a.m. followed by the championship game at 1:30 p.m. Another game would follow that if necessary.

OG: 0-3-0-3-0-1-5 — 12-14-1

WE: 0-0-0-3-0-0-0 — 3-4-6