A Look Ahead: Softball in do-or-die part of year

Published 9:11 pm Sunday, September 28, 2014

I started playing baseball at age 5, then continued through high school and even a couple years of college.

Those seasons seemed to last forever, as we started practice at the beginning of February and then played until mid-August with summer leagues and travel ball.

Professional baseball, well that’s a different story altogether.

Major League Baseball teams play 162 games a year, and that doesn’t include spring training and the postseason for 10 teams, one of which is not the Braves this year. But that’s a different column for a different day.

Actually, here’s one small Braves item — guess who set the franchise record for most strikeouts in a season.

Yep, B.J. Upton, who struck out for the 172nd time this past week. He broke Dan Uggla’s record of 171.

But I digress.

The point I’m leading up to is that high school girls softball, a sport designed in many ways to resemble baseball, doesn’t have a long season at all.

Georgia High School Association teams start at the beginning of August, and before you blink three times it’s the end of September, when it’s win-or-go-home time for many teams.

That is just the case for Dalton, which begins Region 7-5A tournament play at 7 p.m. Thursday at Kell High School in Marietta. The Lady Catamounts enter the tournament as the No. 4 seed from Sub-region 7A-5A and will play Sprayberry, the No. 3 seed from 7B-5A. The tournament has a double-elimination format featuring 10 of the region’s 14 teams who advanced by finishing in the top five of their sub-region during the regular season.

“I told all the girls that you can play as few or as many games as you want,” Dalton coach Stacy Parker said. “Everything that’s happened so far, we’re 14-14 and none of it matters and we have a new season starting Thursday.”

To advance to the Georgia High School Association’s state playoffs, the Lady Cats will need to finish in the top four in the tournament. Even Parker admits that it will be a challenge, although his team’s goal obviously is to overcome those obstacles.

“We would have to beat a No. 2 seed and a No. 1 seed in the (region) tournament,” Parker said. “We will probably have to win three games in the tournament to advance to state.”

As the Lady Cats begin tournament play, others will wrap up sub-region or region play this week, with other high school softball teams in Whitfield and Murray counties all wrapping up that phase by Thursday. We’ll keep you updated on region tournaments and how the brackets look as they take their final shape over the next week.

An important game tonight, however, will feature crosstown rivals from Whitfield County as Northwest hosts Southeast at 5: 55 p.m. in a contest rained out earlier this month. Both the Lady Bruins and the Lady Raiders are in the middle of the pack in Region 7-4A — Southeast beat Northwest 8-5 on Aug. 21 — and can help themselves with a win.

• Prep volleyball is also quickly shifting toward tournament mode, but Northwest will host one of the most important tri-matches of the regular season on Wednesday night.

The Lady Bruins, fresh off Saturday’s runner-up finish at Southeast’s Raider Rally tournament, will host Heritage-Catoosa and Ridgeland in a fight for first place in the Area 7-4A standings.

All three will enter the match undefeated in 7-4A play, although Northwest has seen each of them twice in matches that didn’t count toward the league standings. The Lady Bruins split with Heritage but lost twice to Ridgeland.

• If you caught Dalton State College’s women’s volleyball team’s win over Faulkner University on Saturday, good for you. You won’t have the chance to see the Roadrunners compete in Bandy Gymnasium for quite a while.

Dalton State is at Southern Wesleyan University in Central, S.C., on Tuesday before more road matches at Martin Methodist College in Pulaski, Tenn., on Friday, Bethel University in McKenzie, Tenn., on Saturday and at Reinhardt University in Waleska on Oct. 14 before finally coming home on Oct. 17 to face Loyola University.

• Pleasant weather makes October a prime time for charity golf tournaments in northwest Georgia, and there are plenty of options on our Local Sports Calendar, which you can read every Sunday in The Daily Citizen or at daltonnow.com.

Check it out, then get out your clubs and your checkbook for a good cause.

Ryne Dennis is a sports writer for The Daily Citizen. Have something you’d like him to highlight in “A Look Ahead”? Write to him at rynedennis@daltoncitizen.com.