Its regular season is rapidly coming to a close, and the Columbia Academy softball team is fighting for a chance to reach the postseason.
While the Lady Cougars (9-13) are 1-5 in district play, head coach Kyle Wilks said they still have a shot to make the playoffs and need to play well against Amite School Center next week to get it done.
The Lady Cougars were supposed to host Amite School Center Monday, but the game was rained out. The week prior the two teams had another rainout scheduled at Amite, and now they will play a doubleheader at Amite Thursday to wrap up Columbia Academy’s district schedule.
“Winning one of those two games will certainly help us. There’s still a chance we get in the playoffs,” he said. “We have another busy week next week, playing at Prentiss (Christian) Tuesday and going down to Liberty Thursday for the doubleheader against ASC then a Sylva Bay Tournament Saturday. We finish up with two home games next week. We’re at that home stretch of the season with a couple of injuries with a couple of girls banged up. But hopefully we can put some good games together, get hot at the right time, sneak into the playoffs and once you get there you never know what’s going to happen.”
A 5-RBI performance by Bailey Buckley led Columbia Academy to a 10-1 drumming of Centreville Academy Aug. 22 on its home field.
“We played really well last week against Centreville,” Wilks said. “They’re a good ball club. We hit the ball well against them. Alana Bullock pitched for me and did a great job.”
Wilks said the Lady Cougars played well in both games Saturday in the Centreville Tournament, losing 6-4 to NOLA Homeschool in a game he said they should have won and beating Centreville again 9-2.
However, the Lady Cougars lost at home to Lamar Christian Tuesday 4-2, who they previously beat 11-2 Aug. 20. Maggie Wilks and Buckley led off the bottom of the first with back-to-back triples, and Buckley later scored on a passed ball. But that was the only offense CA could muster in the district loss.
“We didn’t really play that well. We had several walks that came back to haunt us,” Wilks said. “They have a pretty decent pitcher, and we hit her pretty well the week before but we just couldn’t get anything going and lost a game we probably should’ve won. We’re still working hard. We’re not where we want to be, but we’re working hard to get there.”
The Lady Cougars played host to Presbyterian Christian Thursday night, but results were unavailable at press time.
