Madison County’s bid for the state title in softball ended sooner than hoped as the Red Raider softball team earned fourth place in the state finals to cap an outstanding season.
“We went down to Columbus and I thought the girls would play hard, they did all the way through,” coach Doug Kesler said. “Obviously, we would have liked to finish higher but it was still a great season. We are the smallest AAAA school in the state and we were down there battling with those folks and we had out chances. Finishing fourth doesn’t diminish what these girls have accomplished.”
What the Red Raiders accomplished this year amounts to a laundry list of accolades as the girls end with a new school record of 34-5, the 2010 region championship and being ranked first in the state.
“Over the last two years, they have won 61 games and lost nine. They won two region championships back-to-back,” said Kesler. “When someone says, ‘Oh you finished fourth out of eight teams down there,’ you have to understand that this started with 100 teams and worked down to the best eight teams in the state in the second highest division in the state. We faced good teams and we beat some good teams while there, and I can think of nothing but good things to say about our girls.”
Elite Eight
Madison County made it to the state finals after defeating Southwest DeKalb and Northwest Whitfield in the first and second round. The Red Raiders’ first game of the finals pulled Union Grove. Union Grove scored four unearned runs over Madison County in the top of the first inning in what Kesler described as a couple of mental errors due to jitters from the first time being at the big stage.
The girls settled down and didn’t allow another Union Grove batter to score, but could recover from the deficit. Union Grove advanced into the second game with a 4-0 win over the Red Raiders.
The loss in the first Elite Eight game ended a 16 game streak the Red Raiders begun in September.
The sting of the loss was short lived as Madison County met a familiar opponent in the team’s second game in the first pairing of the consolation bracket.
Loganville fell to the eventual state runner-up Greenbrier in the first game and drew Madison County in the lower bracket.
Madison County regained confidence facing a familiar foe, and even after Loganville scored a two run homerun in the first inning, the Red Raiders responded with a run in the bottom of the first and carried on to dominate the game for a 10-2 victory.
For more MCHS softball, see the Madison County Journal.
