Tiftarea softball to play in new region in 2018
Published 9:00 am Sunday, June 10, 2018
CHULA, Ga. — Tiftarea Academy’s softball team is currently in the midst of an early summer spurt as they look to the upcoming 2018 season.
Head coach Joe Barkman dealt with rain as practice began, but has been able to get in steady field work.
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Tiftarea hopes to build on a state tournament appearance in 2017 and just three players graduated off Tiftarea’s roster that squad, Alyssa Brown, Carson Bryan and Missy McKay.
However, Barkman will have but a single senior this year: Olivia Hancock. He estimated five juniors on the team and said there will be four freshmen. In addition, he will be “pulling up four eighth graders to dress varsity.”
“We’re going to be young,” said Barkman. “We’re going to take our bumps.”
Fortunately, Hancock was All-Region at third base last year as was pitcher Sara-Kate Lupo and shortstop McKenna McCard. (The graduating Bryan was also All-Region.)
They will be a faster group overall, he said.
The biggest change, though, will be in who Tiftarea plays.
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Normally a Region 3-AAA team, Barkman said they were moving to Region 4 for the 2018 season. That, he said, was because of a lack of teams. The Georgia Independent School Association lists 14 softball teams in Class AAA (and 31 in the entire league across all classifications). Twelve teams of the 14 teams will make the state tournament.
The lack of teams is not in Tiftarea’s old region, but in the rest of the state. Traditional Region 3 has five softball, more than one-third of the Class AAA total. In their new conference, Region 4, there are only two other schools, John Milledge Academy (located in Milledgeville) and Westfield (Perry). The two will be a handful; Westfield won the state title last year and John Milledge was a semifinalist.
Softball is the only sport where the Panthers are changing regions.
Tiftarea has practiced some during June, sessions which Barkman said would continue through the 21st of the month. After that, he said, they will “shut that down until July.”
Activities next month include a camp at Georgia Southwestern State July 18-19. On Aug. 5, Berrien will be in town. The regular season schedule won’t be affected too much by the region switch. Barkman said he would be playing all of his old Region 3 opponents in Southland Academy, Deerfield-Windsor, Valwood and Brookwood.
