The Enterprise Lady Bulldogs finished off an amazing season by winning the 3A State Championship in fast pitch softball.
“It’s been a good year,” proclaimed Softball Coach Jeremy Wilkins. “I think we finished up 28 and 11. We won the District Championship, won the South State Championship, and then won the State Championship. This is the third State Championship they have won in all, but it is the first one they’ve won in 3A.”
Next year, they will go down to 2A, so being able to win the 3A State Championship allowed them a nice, strong finish to the season.
Coach Wilkins is proud of the girls and how hard each one worked to achieve the team’s overall goals for the season.
“We had a lot of great accomplishments,” declared Wilkins. “We had a lot of great goals that the girls set at the very beginning of the year. We said that we wanted to play in the last 3A softball game, and we had an opportunity to do that. Then, we won that game, and it gave us a chance to win at the State Championship. That’s kind of how the season went.”
They have worked hard long before softball season started to make reaching their goals possible.
“It was a lot of hard work,” explained Wilkins. “All the way back to last summer, we started lifting weights through the summer with the girls and just kind of continued on. Most of them play multiple sports. They were playing volleyball, they were playing soccer, they were playing basketball, and we were still continuing to lift weights and work our way through. It’s been an extremely long preparation period to get to that point. When we first started, that was one of their goals: to get there and win that State Championship. It’s just amazing. They went through the course of the year and stayed the course to be able to win that championship.”
He is proud of each of his players, especially the senior players and the leadership they demonstrated throughout the season.
“We had a great group of girls,” proclaimed Wilkins. “We had a great group of senior girls, which consisted of Marley Brannan, Meredith Dearman, Anna Herrington, and Gabby Newton. They were my four seniors. There was very good senior leadership and a very good group of girls. Meredith was just as good as she could be for us in the circle. She ended up winning 20 games I believe. She struck out over 200 batters on the season and got the MVP of the State Championship series. It was an extremely good year for her, and all three of the other seniors also started. Marley played second base for us, Gabby caught for us, and Anna played in center field. All four of those really did a great job of getting us to this point to be able to win the State Championship. Just their leadership qualities and kind of taking the rest of the girls underneath their wings throughout the season really helped us get to the point to be able to compete for that and be able to win a State Championship. We had some others that contributed, too. Saley Perry really contributed. She scored the winning run in the third game for us. She hit almost 500 and drove in almost 57 runs, I think, during the year. She played left field for us and really helped with this playoff run. We finished the South State Championship on Monday and then turned around and played the first game for the State Championship on Tuesday and finished it up on Friday.”
Overall, there is just pride in everything the girls were able to accomplish.
“I’m just extremely proud of the effort and proud of the girls,” continued Wilkins. “I’m proud of them for committing themselves and giving up on a lot of their stuff to be able to practice and go to work every day so that we could play all the way through. They never lost sight of their goal. There are a lot of distractions that go on over the course of a school year, especially for the seniors this year since they graduated that Thursday night and then showed back up and play game three the following night. Then, the weather had pushed us where we had to play a South State Championship game and turn around eight hours later and play the first game of the Championship series. They just never wavered. They just kept on going. When they could have been leaving school to do something else every day, they were coming to practice every day and working hard. They showed out, and nobody will ever be able to take this away from them. They’ll have this for the rest of their lives. We’re very proud.”
Congratulations Lady Bulldogs on an outstanding season and becoming the 3A State Champions!
