VALDOSTA —
If Lowndes’ softball team wants to win its third straight region title, it knows what it must do today: beat Tift County twice.
Lowndes and Tift County will play a doubleheader today at the Vikettes’ home field, the Morris-Coats Field of Dreams. The first game starts at 4 p.m., with the second game to follow afterwards.
Tift County sits in first place in Region 1-6A with a 10-0 region record. Second place Lowndes is two games behind at 8-2. If Lowndes wins both games, the two teams would tie for first, and the Vikettes would get the region title because they would have beaten Tift twice. “I told (my team on Saturday), ‘If you can’t get up for what’s about to happen on Tuesday, you need to check your pulse,’ because it doesn’t get much better than this,” Lowndes head coach Stewart Thomas said. “You’re playing a team that hasn’t lost a region game. You’re playing a team that’s on a roll. It’s fun.”
“That’s where we wanted to be when we set our goals at the beginning of the season,” Thomas added. “We (wanted to) give ourselves a chance to win the region championship, and here we are.”
Lowndes and Tift have already played once this month, at the Vikette Invitational at Freedom Park. Lowndes dominated that game, 10-2, but neither team’s ace — Tiffany Bishop of Lowndes or Ashlyn Jones of Tift — pitched that day (Lowndes freshman Krystal Eason was the winning pitcher). There’s a good chance that Bishop and Jones could pitch both games today (Lowndes also has Victoria Barber, a senior left-hander, and Eason, while Tift County also has freshman right-hander Adriana Durden, who pitched a no-hitter against Colquitt County on Sept. 18).
Tift County is 24-2 this year, including a 21-0 win over Americus-Sumter and a couple of 15-0 wins. Its pitchers have thrown 13 shutouts. Lowndes and Pierce County (the No. 8 team in Class AAA) are the only teams that have beaten TCHS.
“They’re great guys over at Tift,” Thomas said. “They’re going to be as prepared as any team we’ve played. Every (day) that we’ve played and they didn’t, they were down here watching us.” Lowndes is 19-7 overall. Five of the Vikettes’ seven losses came in tournaments in metro Atlanta, including losses to Class 6A No. 1 Kennesaw Mountain and No. 3 Lassiter and Class 5A No. 10 Starr’s Mill. Lowndes’ two region losses were 1-0 to Coffee and 2-0 to Camden County. The Vikettes are three games ahead of third-place Colquitt, so they can finish no worse than second place. Today, they’re shooting for first place. “You can’t be nervous. You (have to) come out and do what you’re supposed to do,” Thomas said. “It’s going to be a war. ... You’re not going to see any 8-0, 10-0 ballgames. It’s going to be nail-biting. They’ve got good pitching. It’s just going to all come down to who makes the plays, and who can come up with a big hit in a timely manner.”
“We need as many people out here supporting these girls as we can get,” Thomas added.
Local Sports
Lowndes plays for region softball title today
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