By T. Scott Boatright
SIMSBORO — Taking on a team that played for the Division V state title a year ago can be a pretty formidable task, especially for a young and upcoming team that played in its first two postseason games in decades last year.
And it proved to be a little too much of a task this time as 10th-seeded came to Simsboro Tuesday fourth to stay within striking distance before 10th-seeded Family Christian pulled away for a 14-6 win in second-round action of the Class B Louisiana Athletic Association Softball Playoffs.
Family Christian, who lost to Grace Christian in the 2024 Division V state title game, pushed across two runs in both the first and second inning before Simsboro finally got its first run in the bottom of the third to cut the Family Christian lead to 4-1.
Starting pitcher Carlei Wheeler also provided much of Simsboro’s offense, which totaled 10 hits during the contest, while going three-for-four at the plate.
She added four strikeouts on the mound.
Kennady King added a 2-for-3 batting performance for the Lady Tigers, including a run batted in, while Kailee Hamilton added a two-run homer in the bottom of the fifth.
“Family Christian is a young team, but they were poised and looked like they had been there before,” said SHS Coach Payton Bond. “We came out with a lot of energy in the first inning, and it was hot, so Carlei missed some — walked a couple in that first inning, and they had a couple of errors we committed that helped them get their first two runs across.
“But we hung with them, at least at the plate. We put the ball into play a bunch — we had 10 hits. And out of the outs they made, we hit the ball hard at them that they made some good plays on. Their shortstop had a really good arm and covered a lot of ground and took away a couple of base hits I think we get most of the time. Even at the end we kept clawing away and stayed with.”
And by then, the damage done by eight errors committed by the Lady Tigers was doing a little clawing of its own.
“That’s what got to us — all of those errors we committed,” Bond said.
Bond said he realized early on his was coaching a young team against a championship caliber team.
“They made a couple of early errors against bunts by us, so they changed things up and started playing small ball,” Bond said. “Just being able to compete like we did, if we don’t put ourselves and I think we could have been there late.
“But it means a lot for me to see where we’ve gotten to as a program to even being in the conversation of having the potential to make playoff pushes. That’s a big deal. Next year I won’t have any seniors. I have two sophomores that will be juniors, two freshmen that will be sophomores and then everybody else will be freshmen. So we’re young, and getting the chance to play Family Christian today is something we’re proud of and can use to build on. I have to thank the community for coming out and supporting us, too. They were unbelievable.”
