CLASS 3A CENTRAL REGIONAL: St. James wins trip to state; Trinity comes up short
St. James celebrates the Class 3A Central Regional championship after the win over Lee-Scott Academy on Thursday. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
The St. James Trojans trailed by two runs in Thursday’s Class 3A Central Regional matchup with Lee-Scott Academy. The Trojans had scrapped for three runs but now had to score at least two more with just three outs remaining.
St. James coach Mark Hall called his group together for one last pep talk and while the results were magical, the context of the speech is lost to history.
“Honestly, I don’t remember,” Hall said. “I just know this: I heard the (Lee-Scott) pitcher and the coach saying that you’ve got 7-8-9 next inning. So our mentality was at that point, we’re not going to sit here and take until we get a strike. My strategy with them was be aggressive early in the count.”
The Trojans rallied for three runs in the bottom of the seventh to earn a berth in the state tournament with a 6-5 win over the Warriors at Lagoon Park Softball Complex on Thursday afternoon.
Mia Zukowski, the seventh batter in the lineup, was the first to the plate for the Trojans in the bottom of the seventh.
“Even though it’s the bottom of the lineup, he’s going to want y’all to hit,” Zukowski said of the message from Hall. “We’re not looking for walks. Y’all should be looking to hit. So we did it. We hit the ball in the gaps and it worked out.”
While a successful season and a trip to the state tournament was on the line, Zukowski had a simple mindset as she drove the first pitch into the outfield for a single.
“I kind of just think about it like I’m not in a game, I’m just hitting batting practice in the cage with my coach,” she said. “I just take my hands to the ball and hit it.”
Eighth grader Addi Brunson followed with a single to left field and seventh grader Koriah Cannon’s sacrifice bunt to third resulted in a throwing error and a run from Zukowski to cut the lead to 5-4.
“Our eighth hitter is an eighth grader and our ninth hitter is a seventh grader,” Zukowski said, “so they really show out. It’s really impressive and I’m really proud of them.”
Now, it was back to the top of the order and Hall felt confident, even after leadoff hitter Kaitlyn Hudson was called out on strikes.
“The seventh grader puts down a perfect sac bunt that ends up working,” Hall said. “Then, once we got to the top (or the batting order), it’s not ideal to have the bases loaded with a slapper up. What I wanted to do is if we get an out, so be it but let’s don’t get doubled up, don’t get anything crazy, don’t pop it up and get doubled up because that would kill (the rally).
“I’ve got Sydney Johnston, the all-time leading hitter (in school history) coming up and then I’ve got Emily Darby up. I feel good about things.”
Johnston singled to left field, driving in Brunson with the game-tying run and advancing Cannon to third. Johnston then stole second, causing Lee-Scott to intentionally walk Darby to load the bases and bring up Mary Olive Maddox.
Maddox’s bloop behind first base eluded the second baseman, allowing Cannon to score from third with the game-ending run and a 6-5 victory.
“Usually, in our games we win by a lot,” Zukowski said. “When we start getting down in some games, we just give up. But I think this game showed us that even if we are down, we can really come back and be the team we started as in the first inning.”
The Trojans led 2-0, then 3-2 after Lee-Scott had rallied. The Warriors had one more offensive outburst, taking a 5-3 lead over the Trojans that held up until the final at-bat.
“About the fourth inning, (St. James pitcher) Emily Needham figures it out a little,” Hall said. “Not that she was perfect but she threw good enough pitches to get out of the inning. We had some bad hops, we didn’t make some plays on some balls and it put us in a bad spot.
“But I’m super proud of her resiliency. It’s really shaping up well because she just threw a bunch of pitches and I need her to do that to gain stamina for the state (tournament). But I wasn’t thinking about state. We needed to get there first.”
St. James, fortunate to have won on Thursday, earned its fourth consecutive trip to the state tournament, the second longest streak in school history following a five-year stretch in 2005-09.
“I’ve watched many state championship teams lose in their regional tournament and finish (regional) runner-up, but that’s not the route I wanted to go,” Hall said.
To prove his point, Lee-Scott Academy faced Glenwood for the second qualifying berth in the state tournament and lost to the Gators 8-2. The Warriors were two outs away from making their second consecutive trip to the state tournament and instead are sitting at home after losing to their arch rival.
Trinity’s season ends at the hands of Glenwood
Trinity’s softball team met as a group, just minutes after a 10-0 loss to Glenwood School ended the Wildcats’ first trip to the regionals in 12 years.
Five months ago, the regionals were a long shot. Trinity coach Stan Milton was wondering if he had enough players to fill out a team.
“At that point, it’s can we field a team, can we make it through the season because injuries are going to happen,” Milton said. “I’m not worried about if we can win a game or even finish a game. Can we get through a season and not have to cancel games because somebody got sick or got hurt.
“From there, a regional appearance or even day two of a regional was never in my thoughts. There was a lot that had to go right to make it from that point until today.”
Back in November and December, the girls that wanted to play softball needed to recruit a few more players to have enough to field a team.
“We were kind of sad about it,” shorttop Marley Sharpless said, “because we had played our entire lives and I really wanted one last season where I could give it my all my senior year. Then we had some girls who stepped out of their comfort zone and stepped up and joined the team for us so that we could have a team and we’re really proud of them for that.”
“Me and Marley have both been on this team the past six years and have seen a lot of different teams,” third baseman Emma Rose Meldrum said. “This one, I would have to say, might be one of the closest just because we wanted it so bad that we literally grabbed people out of the lunchroom to play. Some of our friends that we’ve been begging for years stepped up just for us to have a team. For us to make it this far with a team that we didn’t think we’d have, even in January, is really incredible.”
Six of the dozen players on the team are seniors, with right fielder Kenzie McClelland joining the team after not playing as a sophomore or junior and left fielder Maggie Stephens joining the squad for the first time after the season had started.
“We had a team, then several girls came to me and decided they wanted to do other things or they just didn’t want to do softball,” Milton said. “We were missing some big pieces from last year but we got it finalized in late November, December and January that we could have enough girls to at least have a team.
“Then it was, let’s try to put these people in places where they can succeed. And then we had one more, Maggie, come in, in March, after the school play was over. She hasn’t played since she was 8 years old and she didn’t start with us until March.
“Seeing the progress of all these girls -- especially the ones who came in late -- it was huge for us to get to this point.”
The six seniors -- outfielders McClelland, Stephens and Kayleigh Creel, Sharpless, Meldrum and first baseman Emory Harris -- are the backbone of the team. Rounding out the starters are freshman catcher Harper Johnson, junior second baseman Lyla Goldberg and seventh grade pitcher Layla Pelt.
“It’s all about the perseverance of these seniors,” Milton said. “They’ve been through a lot. Kenzie came back this year because she wanted to be with this group. Maggie just came back. She originally wanted to run bases (as a courtesy runner) and she ended up becoming an every-day starter.”
The first month of the season, just like the team, showed no indication of what the Wildcats could achieve. There were four cancellations and just six games. Nine of the final 19 games were area games, but two of those wins -- against area rival Alabama Christian -- gave the Wildcats a regional berth for the first time since 2014.
“As seniors, we’re at our highest potential so we knew this year would be the year we would make it,” Sharpless said. “We wanted it, we wanted to work for it, we knew who we had to beat from the beginning of the season, so we trained for that moment and in that moment we came through.”
“It was definitely surreal,” Meldrum added. “We’ve been playing the same teams for five years and for this team to finally come out on top is really incredible.”
Trinity (11-14) didn’t make a lot of waves in the Central Regional, losing its first game to Childersburg before beating Hale County 10-3 to reach the second day of the regional and avoid a two-and-out performance.
On Thursday, the season that almost wasn’t finally ended but there were no tears after losing to Glenwood.
“Being able to play together one last time has been the best opportunity of our lives,” Sharpless said. “This was our goal. We made it as far as we could. We’ve accomplished our goal. We’ve had a successful season. We’re keeping our heads up. We’re proud of ourselves.”