BY DANIEL SCHMIDT
THE OBSERVER
BEAUREGARD — In the hours between a crushing regional championship game loss and a win-or-go-home state tournament qualifier, Beauregard High School’s softball players gathered to vent their frustrations.
In that huddle, they were fresh off a 13-2 loss to Holtville High School (19-15) that kept them from winning their second 5A central region tournament in three years and sought to prevent frustration from boiling over into a full-on meltdown.
After a bit of sulking and reflection, the Lady Hornets (28-17) ultimately rallied with a near-flawless 4-0 win over Shelby County High School (31-8) at Montgomery’s Lagoon Park Softball Complex on May 14 to punch their ticket to Oxford.
That elimination game victory followed 12-1 and 12-2 wins over Jemison High School (12-16) and Central Clay County High School (12-22), respectively, on May 13.
According to BHS head coach Nathan Langley, it was an unsurprising performance. Time after time this season, his team has responded to adversity as his senior leaders grab the reigns and press forward.
“There wasn’t a lot going right in the first game [against Holtville] as we saw, so the message was very easy because it was understood by them before we even talked about it: they knew we didn’t play near our best game,” Langley said. “This game is loved by many but played by few. It’s just one of those things you can’t explain. Everything went our way yesterday, and then today, we couldn’t make any plays and the offense kept stalling. They had about 30 minutes where they pow wowed and talked with each other in between those two games, and by the time they came back to us, we were ready to go.”
Even as the players behind her could seemingly do no wrong fielding SCHS’s fly balls, senior pitcher Raegan Brooks willed the Lady Hornets across the finish line.
With the season on the line, Brooks went 1-for-3 and drove in two runs as a batter, and allowed just two hits and one walk while striking out three in seven innings on the mound.
Her performance put an exclamation point on a four-game tear in which she went 4-for-12 with three runs and the two RBIs while finishing with 10 hits, 10 runs — one earned — two walks and seven strikeouts in 14 innings pitched.
“It feels surreal. It’s like you came out here and it’s a completely different ball game,” Brooks said. “I tried not to let anything carry over, and I just took it pitch by pitch. Each pitch had to be a new pitch. I told myself, ‘You can’t be too happy and you can’t get too excited, but you can’t get too down.’ There has to be equilibrium, and I had to find it within myself. I told myself if I [could] do that, we were going to be okay. And so that happened, and I couldn’t be more ecstatic right now.”
Across BHS’s four-game run at regionals, there were plenty of other noteworthy performances.
Ellie Burroughs finished the tournament by going 8-for-12 with five runs and seven RBIs, while fellow infielder McKenzie Handley went 6-for-13 and also finished with five runs and seven RBIs.
In the outfield, Shelby Craft batted 5-for-8 to go with four runs and an RBI, and Macie Bellflower had a run and an RBI on 4-for-10 hitting.
And although she admitted she did not put up her best performance in the regional tournament, Lindsey Moulton also provided a steady presence at the plate, in the infield and on the mound.
Across the four games, Moulton batted a combined 4-for-14 to go with seven runs, two RBIs and three stolen bases. Additionally, she gave up five hits, six runs — two earned — walked four and struck out two in eight total innings pitching.
For the star senior shortstop, it was a moment of déjà vu that tracked similarly to BHS’s path to Oxford almost exactly a year ago.
“Last year, we did the same thing: we lost to [Brewbaker Tech in the regional championship] and then beat Holtville, who I’m sure wanted to get their get-back at us,” Moulton said. “I think fighting in this game showed how much we wanted it. We came together again and had a pow wow like we did at the area tournament, and we were just like, ‘We don’t want this to be our last game.’ We didn’t want to lose this game because it meant a lot to us.”
With a first-round game against No. 4 Lawrence County High School on May 19 looming, Langley said his team is eager to make up for an 8-1 elimination game loss to Faith Academy in last year’s tournament.
With one of his team’s major preseason goals having just been accomplished, there is just one more left: winning the school’s first-ever softball state championship.
“The goal was set as soon as that game ended, and there was almost an expectation that we would be back there; that was the talk all year,” Langley said. “I can’t be any more excited for them with what they’ve been through all season. They deserve it, and they’ve earned it. It’s great to be back, and they wanted to have a chance. We all know that when you get there, everything’s available. There’s no telling who comes out with it.”
