MACON — Confidence can work wonders with youth.
A year ago, the Central Academy fast-pitch softball team relied on a squad of underclassmen to get back to .500. While there were growing pains, coach Sammy Lindsey saw plenty of positive signs throughout the fall.
The Lady Vikings continued to make those steps in the spring as they won the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools slow-pitch state title.
The squad will now try its luck at a fast-pitch title starting Friday with the 2012 regular season opener at Winston Academy.
Lindsey hopes the confidence his team gained earlier this year carries over to the fast-pitch season. The Lady Vikings will need that confidence because they will be young again. Without a senior on the roster, Lindsey won’t allow his players to use that lack of experience as an excuse.
From the sound of it, the Lady Vikings aren’t entertaining that thought.
“We have been playing together for so long that it doesn’t feel like we’re young,” junior Cassie Campbell said. “We have been playing together for a long time. We know how to read each other and we’re finally getting to where we can play as a team. I think we have a lot to look forward to.”
Lindsey, who will be assisted by his daughter, Lillian, a former player at Central Academy and at East Mississippi Community College, points to pitching as a key to the season. With junior Blake Rigdon behind the plate, Central Academy, which has 12 players on its roster, will look to Paige Buchanan as its No. 1 pitcher. Lindsey said Courtney Gaylord, Sadie Lindsey, Anna Beth Rigdon, and Ashley Brown and Kelsey Robbins without pitching experience will compete for time in the circle.
“We’re shooting for the playoffs,” Lindsey said. “That’s all we’re going to do, try to make it and see what happens. We’re still young, but we’re getting better, and we’re a year older. That has to help.”
Last May, Central Academy beat Winona Christian 7-6 in nine innings and then defeated Kemper Academy twice to win its eighth state title in the program’s history.
Coach Lindsey said last season the Lady Vikings had the right mind-set entering the tournament and “player their hearts out.”
Juniors Rigdon, Campbell, Neely Abrams, and Sarah Norris agreed the championship gave them added confidence that they will use to motivate the team this season. They acknowledge fast-pitch is a different sport that slow-pitch softball and that the team will need to hit the ball better to improve on last season’s .500 finish. But they also agreed the team bonded on the title run and that no one believes that inexperience or youth will prevent them from taking the next step.
“We only lost one senior (Logan Waggoner),” Blake Rigdon said. “She was our shortstop, but we played with everybody else.”
Said Norris, “I feel we are going to be a lot better. We already won the state championship, and I feel like we bonded from that.”
Coach Lindsey agrees and hopes the tenacity he saw from his young players at the end of last season comes through and helps the Lady Vikings capitalize on an added year of experience and be even better than 2011.
“I can see where the four juniors know they are the leaders of the team,” Lindsey said. “They know it is all on them, and Blake has been starting since the sixth grade, so she knows they will be looking up to her. The other three are coming into that role, too. … I know a lot of people have said they were thinking not this season but the next was the time we would be ready, but I don’t see why we’re not right now. It is going to be the same kids again but with another year of experience. They feel the same way. It is time to get back in there now. We aren’t planning on waiting another year. We’re planning on making it back to Cleveland (for the playoffs). We just want to get back in it and have a chance.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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