BY DANIEL SCHMIDT
THE OBSERVER
SMITHS STATION — After losing to No. 1 Saint James 5-2 in the 3A central regional tournament on May 13, Glenwood School’s softball team found itself with its back against the wall.
To make the program’s first Alabama High School Athletic Association state tournament, the Lady Gators needed to win three straight elimination games.
By the time the dust settled at Montgomery’s Lagoon Park Softball Complex on May 14, No. 3 Glenwood (30-13) had chomped through the competition and claimed its spot in Oxford.
It was a spectacular run that saw the Lady Gators defeat Trinity Presbyterian (11-14) 10-0, Childersburg High School (26-21) 12-1 and bitter rival Lee-Scott Academy (22-16) 8-5 in a marathon day.
Those wins followed a 15-0 victory over Greensboro High School that was called after three innings on May 13.
After receiving an obligatory ice water bath from his overjoyed players, Glenwood head coach Josh McConnell praised them for the mental and physical strength they showed in emerging from the elimination bracket.
“It really hasn’t sunk in yet and I’m just so proud of them,” McConnell said. “What they did today is really hard to do: win three games in a row. They never flinched, and just kept grinding out at bats, pitched the ball well and made plays. On a day like this, it gets hot and it gets tiring, and you would have never known that with them.”
Senior pitcher Brooke Morrell spearheaded the Lady Gators’ efforts, pitching in three of Glenwood’s five regional games.
Over the course of the entire tournament, Morrell threw 14 innings, allowed 13 hits and six earned runs, walked five and struck out 14.
In just the school’s second year playing at the AHSAA level, Morrell said the opportunity to compete at the highest level in the state was a dream.
“I’m really proud of this team for how hard we’ve worked this season to get to this moment, because it’s something we’ve never done before and it means a lot,” Morrell said. “And I’m really proud of [my teammates] for not taking the loss from yesterday into today. We just took it game by game.”
Fellow senior and second baseman Claire Hargrove, who went 2-for-9 with four runs and three RBIs at regionals, echoed the sentiment.
As Glenwood prepares to make a run at the state title, Hargrove said she was looking forward to the next week of practices.
“We just push really hard every day at practice; we [field] ground balls, we hit and we all show up to practice ready to work and have a good time,” Hargrove said. “We need to keep our bats hot. I think we really figured that out after Saint James, and [our coaches] pushed us to be better today. But also, I think our pitchers can definitely work on just staying consistent, especially with the heat, and being able to pitch game after game. And then just doing the basics like keeping hits to a pop fly and stuff like that.”
While the Lady Gators’ seniors took time to reflect on their final seasons, it was their core group of underclassmen who powered the run out of Montgomery.
Over the five-game stretch, Glenwood outscored its opponents 47-13 while batting .390 as a team.
The offense racked up 46 hits and 37 RBIs across 118 at-bats and drew 19 walks against just 14 strikeouts.
Cayden Henderson paced the offense with eight runs and nine RBIs on an 8-for-16 hitting line, and Chloe Walden scored a team-high 10 runs.
Additionally, Karrington Slocumb hit 8-for-15 with eight RBIs, and Caroline Breazeale went 8-for-14 while scoring eight runs.
In the middle and bottom of the lineup, Caroline Chapa went 5-for-11 and Kady Corbitt had three RBIs, giving the Gators complete one through nine production.
According to McConnell, those stat lines were a byproduct of his philosophy of forcing his players into uncomfortable situations to make them grow and improve.
As his team prepares to travel to Choccolocco Park to compete in the 3A state tournament, those lessons will now have to carry them forward.
“We’re going to continue to play the way we’re playing,” McConnell said. “Our girls do a good job of not letting the moment get too big. We’ve been in a lot of different types of games, which is a blessing. You schedule these games and tournaments to put yourself in as many different situations as possible. We’re just going to continue doing what we’ve done and not do things that we haven’t done all year. We’re not changing anything because we are who we are at this point.”
