It was the little things that reared their head in the Tallassee softball team’s trip to the Class 4A AHSAA regional tournament.
The Tigers opened their first game against Oak Grove, where they faced an early five-run deficit through the first three frames, with errors playing a major role. However, come the fourth inning, the Tigers found their stride, scoring six runs and holding on to that lead for a 9-8 win in extra innings.
Reagan Easterwood and Kam Tate saw most of the success with their at-bats, each finishing with two hits to their total. Tallassee, as a whole, finished with eight hits and nine innings.
Although the error played a factor, it did not truly show until the second game against West Blocton. Tallassee ultimately fell 14-1, but the glaring statistic was the 11 errors through just five innings of play.
“We came out good in the first game,” THS head coach Pat Love said. “I mean, we made some mistakes, but we fought hard and came away with a win. We really didn't play well in that second game right there, that team came out and really hit the ball, and we made a few errors.”
Having a win under their belt, the Tigers advanced to Day 2 of regionals, where they met with Handley. Although jumping out to a two-run lead, Handley responded with three runs in the bottom of the first inning and added one more in the bottom of the second. The game went stagnant until Tallassee attempted to make a late-game surge to advance. Cheyann Esterling scored via a double from Marlee Osborne to cut the Handley lead to just one run.
Even so, Tallassee could not make the comeback and fell 4-3. The season might have come to a close sooner than he would have liked, but Love was still proud of the fight his team showed.
“They're gonna fight to the end,” Love said. “That's the way we preach, and that's what we do. And they did, they fought to the end. We were one base hit away from right there, going up, you know, going up 5-4, right there.”
Tallassee finished the season with an 18-18 record, but in Love’s eyes, he was pleased about his team’s performance in the later stretch of the season to even make it to regionals.
“I think we had a good season,” Love said. “We definitely got better as it went on. And like I said, I'm proud of them. They got better as it went on. We did not play our best in this tournament right here, but that happens sometimes. They grew as a season one on and I'm very proud of them.”