By Michael Butler

Last year, the Tallassee High School softball team took some lumps with a young team and a loaded schedule, but the girls got hot when it counted coming up just one win short of a state championship tournament bid.

“We still have a young team with four seniors, no juniors and several sophomores,” said head coach Pat Love of this year’s squad. “This team is going to be seasoned compared to last year. They’re battle-tested. We’ve played some of the best teams in the state. In one tournament, I think we played three out of the top four in 7A.”

Tallassee finished last season with a 14-29 record losing a 10-9 heartbreaker to Marbury at Lagoon Park in the finale.

“We were very competitive all year,” Love added. “As we got going, the girls started to believe. I told them if we ever put it together, we’re going to be tough. Toward the end of the year, we started doing it.”

This will be season eight for Love, who guided the Tigers to an area tournament title and its fifth consecutive regional appearance last year. He loses just two seniors from the roster in Madeline Weldon and Keke Hutchinson.

Weldon, a Chattahoochee Valley Community College signee, led Tallassee in the circle with 163 innings pitched last season. Kam Tate, Marlee Osborne and Olivia Hammonds, all sophomores, are expected to pick up the slack this year.

“I think all three can bring something different to the table. As long as they can throw strikes, I think we’ll be fine. We’ve got 22 girls between JV and varsity, so we’re going to have a small roster. We’ve got an SMS team that has 13 girls.”

The Tigers return their top two hitters in Cheyann Easterling and Reagan Easterwood. Easterling hit .423 with 41 runs and 32 stolen bases. Easterwood batted .361 with 4 homeruns and 42 RBIs.

The running theme with Tallassee’s drop in classification from Class 5A to 4A for its athletic programs is smaller does not necessarily mean easier.

“Our area is going to be very competitive,” Love stated. “We’ve got Prattville Chrisitan. They’re really good. They’ve got two pitchers going to AUM and Faulkner. I think they’ve got three or four signees. They’ll be tough. Catholic will be tough. LAMP will be tough.”

Love is confident that this group can make some noise and compete for a championship.

“We’ve got a bunch of qualities in a team that you look for. I feel like we can swing the bat pretty good. I think we’ll be good on defense. The question mark is pitching, but I think we’ve got girls who can challenge hitters. We’ve to gel, grow and continue to get better. As long as we do that, I think we’ll be there at the end of the year.”