Veterans softball shakes up region standings with doubleheader sweep over Houston County

KATHLEEN — The Veterans Lady Warhawks made their case for their first region championship in three years on Thursday.

After dropping the first game of their series against the Houston County Lady Bears (12-7, 6-4 Region 2-5A) on Tuesday 9-1, the Lady ‘Hawks (15-4, 7-3 Region) stormed back with serious fight as they took games two and three 8-7 and 11-8 respectively.

Here are three observations from Thursday’s doubleheader:

PHOTOS: See more photos of the doubleheader.

1. Never back down

One thing about the Lady ‘Hawks on Thursday: They didn’t back down no matter the score.

On Tuesday they kept close to HoCo but allowed seven runs in the fifth inning to end the game. They never got a chance to make the comeback.

It looked like they’d suffer a similar fate in Game 1 as they went down 6-2 in the top of the fifth, but Veterans came back to tie it on a Katelyn Haines three-run home run and eventually won in the bottom of the ninth inning with a walk-off single from Maddy Kinkade.

After going up 4-0 early in Game 2 the Lady Bears scored seven unanswered to lead 7-4, but in the bottom of the fourth Veterans took the lead and never looked back.

Lady ‘Hawks’ softball coach Jeff Sans couldn’t have been prouder of his team after the game:

“Unbelievably proud of them. We got down early, heck, down in the seventh in the [first game] we hit a three-run bomb. We got up early in the second game and they came and stormed back,” Sans said. “I was just proud of the way they fought, kept battling, kept fighting, kept scratching and just pulled it out. Super proud of them girls.”

The at-bat he’s referring to was from Haines. She saw 10 pitches before she launched a no-doubter to tie it up.

2. The long ball

One of the things that helped Veterans make those comebacks were home runs. Two in Game 1 by Bella Fendley and Haines, and one in Game 2 by Kharisma “Rizzy” White.

In total the Lady ‘Hawks had 69 at-bats and came away with a hit in 24 of those, and only four were extra base hits (Kinkade had a double in Game 1).

Although Sans would prefer if they didn’t rely on those big plays, Veterans did leave a lot of runners stranded in this series, he acknowledged the power they have in the lineup.

“We’ve got a lot of power,” Sans said. “I wish that with runners on we would rely more on, ‘Hey let’s hit a 10-hopper to the shortstop and score the runner.’ We got to get that mentality at certain times. But yeah we can hit one through nine and there’s five or six girls that can goyard.”

3. The region race is not over

Thomas County Central, after sweeping Lee County this week, is 8-2 in the region standings. Their series with HoCo next week (and Veterans’ record the rest of the way) will likely determine the region champion.

Currently Veterans sits in second place at 7-3, HoCo is tied with Coffee for third at 6-4 (The Lady Bears have the head-to-head tiebreaker), and Lee County and Northside are at a distant 3-7 and 0-10.

If HoCo does sweep TCC next week and win out the Lady ‘Hawks can go 4-1 in their last five region games and still take first place. If TCC wins one and then wins out they’ll be tied for first with Veterans, who has the head-to-head tiebreaker.

Now, if TCC wins out instead, they’ll be taking the region championship.

There is a path to the 2024 region championship for the ‘Lady Hawks.

UP NEXT

Veterans’ next region series is next week against Northside. They’ll play at home on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. and have a doubleheader on Thursday at Northside starting at 5 p.m.