Liberty-Eylau softball shows improvement

TEXARKANA, Texas — Liberty-Eylau’s girls softball team is much improved over last year’s version.

Through seven games they’ve already recorded the number of wins (3) that the Lady Leopards had all of last season.

“Yes, we expect to be much better, and of course, making the playoffs is always one of our team’s goals,” said Liberty-Eylau softball coach Dillon Surratt. “We like to set our goals high, then we’ll have something to shoot for.”

The Leopards are 3-4 through 7 games this year. They dropped an 8-5 decision to Jefferson on the road Wednesday.

“We were tied at 5-5 going into the bottom of the sixth inning, but we made two costly errors and in the seventh we had runners at second and third and couldn’t get them in,” Surratt said.

That loss to Jefferson points out two things Surratt tells his team.

“One, we need to get the clutch hits when we have runners in scoring position,” he said. “We’ve got to execute offensively.

“And second, when your number is called, when the ball is hit to you, make the play. All the flyballs need to be outs, and the grounders need to be outs. I told the girls when your number is called, don’t mess it up.”

Liberty-Eylau, which went 3-3 in its season-opening tournament, will play three games today in the Linden-Kildare Tournament. The Leopards will battle Jefferson at 11 a.m., Paul Pewitt at 2 p.m. and host Linden-Kildare at 5 p.m.

“We’re still trying to fit all the pieces together and put our girls in the best positions we can in order to win,” Surratt said. “The girls are working extremely hard and they show up every day for practice. We want to get better each game and not make the same mistakes twice.”

Pitching chores have come down to two main players, Katelin Downs and R’Reannah Thompson. Both are right-handers.

“Katelin’s been on the varsity for three years now and she’s really developing her pitching skills,” Surratt said. “Her velocity has improved and she’s got a couple of good pitches. We’re just working on her pitch location the most now.”

The catcher will be Abigail Cockrell, a sophomore. Infielders include Ja’kai Ray at first, Landrea Williams at second, Makenzie Kvarda at shortstop and Ma’Riyah Kendrick at third.

The outfield consists of Kaci Otwell in left, Laiklyn Dowelware in right and Thompson in center.

Surratt hasn’t seen teams play in his district, but he guesses that Sulphur Springs will be the early favorite.

“Sulphur Springs went unbeaten in Texas High’s 5A district last year and they moved down to 4A this season, so they’re the logical choice,” the coach said. “They reached the 5A state tournament last year.”

Liberty-Eylau hasn’t been to the softball playoffs since 2017, Surratt said.

“We’ll have to beat Pittsburg and Paris to make the playoffs,” he said. “We think the playoffs is a real goal we can achieve if we continue to work hard and improve.”