Winners of five straight games and eight out of their last nine, the Columbia Academy Lady Cougars are peaking at just the right time.
Columbia Academy (13-11) closed out the regular season with a pair of lopsided victories, the second of which secured its spot in the playoffs.
On senior night Sept. 17, the Lady Cougars plated five runs in the first inning and 10 in the second to run away from Presbyterian in a 17-5 contest. Allie Watts and Maggie Wilks paced the offense with three hits apiece with Watts driving in four runs. Maggie Wilks drew the start in the circle and gave up three runs in two innings, and Carlee Pounds closed it out with two innings in relief, allowing two runs.
Tuesday in a makeup game a nine-run first inning propelled CA to a 15-3 win over Lamar Christian in the regular season finale. Alana Bullock stole the show with 4 RBI while picking up the win in the circle, striking out four batters in four innings. Briley Sullivan and Megan Rowley each had three hits, and Maddie Claire Sauls drove in three runs.
“The biggest thing the last couple of weeks — we’ve hit the ball well all year — but we’re making the plays defensively,” head coach Kyle Wilks said. “We’re not making as many errors and mental mistakes defensively as we did in the past. We’ve been hitting the ball really well and haven’t struck out a ton. It’s just all started to come together over the last two weeks, and that’s what you want to do. You want to be playing your best ball going into the playoffs, which is what we’re doing.”
The Lady Cougars secured a playoff berth with the victory and will play the No. 1 seed from District 3, Clinton Christian, in the first round of the South State Tournament Saturday morning at 9 at Tri-County Academy.
“Clinton Christian is a really good team and the defending state champ from last year. They’ve got a pitcher that signed with Jones who could be the best pitcher in the state. But if you hit the ball hard and get a couple of (girls) on, you never know what may happen,” Wilks said. “We’re looking forward to going into the playoffs playing our best ball, and hopefully we can make a little noise.”
With a win in the opening game, the Lady Cougars would face the winner between Amite School Center and Tri-County or Riverfield Academy at 3 p.m. Saturday. With a loss, they would play the loser of that game at 1 p.m.
The South State playoffs are set up as a double-elimination tournament with eight teams with the top four teams advancing to the State Tournament, which begins Oct. 3.
