Lady Warriors open summer play

Opening day for the White County High School softball team is less than a month away, but the Lady Warriors got a chance to step on the field for the first time this summer during a doubleheader Tuesday at Banks County High School.

The Lady Warriors kicked off the summer league schedule with a pair of wins, shutting out Union County 6-0 in the first game of the day, and then knocking off Banks County 8-2 in the nightcap. WCHS will play two more games today, heading to Carnesville to take on Franklin County and Hart County. Next week the Lady Warriors head to Berry College for a team camp, where they will play two more summer league games.

“As a coach, you are just excited to be out there, and hopefully you only have to put a little air in the tires and not have to rebuild the whole car,” WCHS head coach Drew Owens said Wednesday morning. “We found some small glitches in some things that we need to tweak, and that's what we are doing today (at practice). Things like a couple of bunt defenses that we didn't do completely wrong, but we could do at a higher level. It's fun coaching being able to tweak some little things that will make us a lot more efficient.”

The Lady Warriors are experiencing a much different preseason than they did last year. With Covid-19 restrictions still in place last July, the team didn't have the opportunity to play summer league games, and even practice sessions were limited right up until the start of the 2020 season. Owens is thankful this summer has been much better.

“The first thing I said yesterday before we took the field was 'girls, at this time last year we were able to get on the field but we couldn't use a ball.' In our sport, it's really important to be able to use a ball,” Owens said with a laugh. “It was a breath of fresh air to be out there on the field. It's starting to feel normal again.”

Annika Vandiver and Liana O'Kelly both pitched complete games in the Lady Warriors' summer league debut, while the offense got contributions from just about everyone in the lineup

We did some few fundamental things the right way and we hit the ball well,”  Owens said. “We also had excellent pitching all night, just pounding the zone.”

While  Vandiver and O'Kelly kept the Panthers and the Leopards in check, the Lady Warriors got a solid defensive effort in both games, making just about every routine play and limiting the damage to only two runs in two games.

The Lady Warrior hitters accumulated a ton of quality at-bats and consistently put the bat on the ball, even when they made outs

“People want to make the unbelievable play, but we stress to the girls that it's a very simple game,” Owens said. “Make the routine plays on defense and hit the ball a little bit, you have a chance to be successful. Our players are very athletic, so you know every time a pitch is thrown, you're going to get 110 percent from every kid on the field. The camaraderie in the dugout and in the locker room is great; the kids are just wanting to be successful, and that's fun to coach.”

This afternoon, the Lady Warriors will hit the road again for games against Franklin County and Hart County.

“We definitely get tested at Franklin,” Owens said. “Franklin coach Jason Oliver always puts a heck of a club on the field. They are very well coached. Hart County is good, they were very successful last year and they are well-coached. The summer games are for working on different things, but we playing, you put the uniform on, you want to win. The biggest thing is getting the kids used to winning; that's huge. Every time they strap the cleats up, they need to be a 100 percent positive they are going to walk off the field with a win. That gives you a leg up on the competition.”

Next week, the Lady Warriors will spend four days at team camp in Rome, working on all aspects of the game along with playing a pair of games.

At team camp, we'll play Pepperell,” Owens said. “They're a small small (Class AA), but they've had a lot of good luck in the playoffs. We'll run into Rockmart in the second game, and they won a state championship two years ago, and they played for it last year. It will be good for us to find out where we stand and what level we need to get to so we can be in Columbus (state finals) in October.”