No. 9 Lady Wolves preparing for MACCC softball tournament
WESSON – The No. 9 ranked Co-Lin Lady Wolves will be heading to the Mississippi Association of Community College Conference (MACCC) State Softball Tournament in Fulton.
The Lady Wolves (27-7), the fourth seed, will play the fifth-seeded and No. 20 Pearl River Lady Wildcats (27-13) on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in the first round. The top eight teams in the state will play in the double-elimination tournament hosted by Itawamba Community College. The tournament will run through Saturday and a State Champion will be crowned. In other first round action:
• (3) Jones vs. (6) Northeast | 12 p.m.
• (2) Mississippi Gulf Coast vs. (7) Northwest Mississippi | 2:30 p.m.
• (1) Itawamba vs. (8) Hinds | 5:30 p.m.
• (4) Co-Lin vs. (5) Pearl River | 7:30 p.m.
All games will be streamed live at www.letsgoicctv/red.
The winner of Co-Lin/Pearl River will play the winner of Hinds/Itawamba at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday.
Co-Lin swept Pearl River in the regular season 5-1.
"We are super proud of this group of young ladies and how they have represented our school all year," said Lady Wolves head coach Meleah Howard. "They have earned the privilege to compete for a state championship and we are excited about the opportunity. This is the time of year where you leave it on the field, and I have no doubt our girls are prepared to do that. We must go in focused and ready to go. If we do that, I like our chances to compete at a high level this week and hopefully come back with a championship."
LEADERS |
Offensively, NJCAA and MACCC Player of the Week Carlon Brabham (Amite, LA/Oak Forest Academy) has been on a roll as of late. In her last six games she went 11-for-17 (.647) with seven home runs, double, single and two walks. The sophomore leads the team in batting average (.455), slugging percentage (.918), home runs (14), RBIs (52) and hits (50). Brabham is not the only Lady Wolf batting over .400 on the season. Freshmen Malori Cade (Brookhaven/Loyd Star High School) is batting .429, Madalyn Wilkinson (Madison/Germantown High School) .410 and Cera Blanchard (Metairie, LA/De La Salle High School) .405. Sophomore Abigail Carter (Mendenhall/Simpson Academy) is second on the team with nine home runs and leads the team in walks with 18.
The Lady Wolves have a pair of pitchers that rank in the Top 20 in the country. Freshman Cera Blanchard (13-3) has a 1.59 ERA which ranks her No. 6. Sophomore Bella Luckey (Mendenhall/Simpson Academy) has a 1.97 ERA which ranks her No. 16.
Next up | The top four teams from the state tournament qualify for the NJCAA Region 23 Tournament which will be hosted by LSU-Eunice. Itawamba, the MACCC regular season champion and host LSU-E, get a bye in the first round of the tournament.