Lady Jackets back in the Elite Eight
The Calhoun High School softball team is headed to the Elite Eight — again.
An annual trip to Columbus in late October has been part of head coach Diane Smith’s travel plans for a long time now and this year is no different with her team right in the middle of the 5A state championship hunt.
They became one of the last eight schools still standing this week when they traveled to Kathleen Tuesday evening and swept Veterans High School in two games to win the best-of-three series and remain perfect in the playoffs with a 4-0 record.
All season-long, Smith stress the importance of her team’s pitching and defense and while there’s no question that maybe the formula for success this coming week at state, there’s also no question that the Yellow Jacket offense is currently the star of the show.
True, the pitching and defense has been very good with only four runs given up
in those four playoff games, they’ve gotten everyone’s attention at the plate with their 41-run outburst during those same games.
After scoring 23 runs in a few hours against Decatur to end the Bulldogs season last week, they scored 18 runs in their doubleheader win over Veterans in another pair of mercy rule wins.
Veterans entered the tournament as the number one seed out of region one and
they, like Calhoun, were most impressive in their first-round sweep of Creekside winning both games by a 17-0 score to cruise through that bestof-three series.
But Calhoun, as usual at this time of the year, would not be denied, belting Veterans, 10-1, in Game One and then coming right back for a 8-0 blistering of the Warhawks to end their season.
In the first game, sophomore Athens Hudson allowed just five hits and no earned run in just five innings of work.
The offense finished with another double-digit effort as Paris Kirby and Molly Banks led the way with three hits each.
Kirby hammered the ball the entire game, slugging a home run and two doubles and Banks was 3-for-4. Senior Espee Reyes also had a pair of doubles in the win.
In the second game, Smith handed the ball to senior Sydney Terry and she threw shutout softball for five inning and recorded five strikeouts.
Reyes ended an excellent day at the plate with a 2-for3 showing and Banks ended the game with her walk-off hit in the fifth.
The Yellow Jackets are now 21-13 on the year and will play in Columbus against a still-to-be determined opponent.
The 5A Region 7 will have two teams, or 25 percent of the field, at the state tournament as Blessed Trinity also made it by defeating Ware County in two games Tuesday.
Veterans closes the year with a 19-9 record.