New-look West Laurens softball team managing ups, downs of inexperience in early games

For West Laurens head softball coach Mike Thompson, the ebbs and flows of this season’s first seven games have largely confirmed what he and his staff already knew about their squad heading into 2026. 

While hoping for the best, the Raiders were prepared for a significant adjustment this fall after replacing a big senior class, full of three- and four-year contributors. 

That’s a transition they’re often equipped to handle pretty smoothly, though this year’s involves a slightly larger gap to bridge between a lineup and pitching staff that was as deep it gets to a returning one that, despite an incoming wave of young talent with comparable intrigue to that of the class they lost, will have some thin spots where it has to make do in the early going.  

“I’ve learned that we are young, and inexperienced,” Thompson said. 

This is one of West’s smallest rosters in some time, with just 16 players. 

About a third of that number are freshmen who led their middle school teams to their back-to-back MGMSAA region championships as seventh and eighth graders. And all are prepared to contribute heavily right away. 

But even for the most talented of those young players, the varsity game carries a bit of a learning curve that each will be dealing with as they’re very much thrown right into the fire this season. 

The Raiders aren’t short on experience to balance that out, but between injuries (rising junior Sadie Jo Alligood is out for the season after a recent surgery) and a surplus of outfielders among the returning upperclassmen, things are kind of tight at several defensive positions where they’re having to do the best they can with what’s available. 

“We’ve got some older kids, but some of them are playing positions that they haven’t played, and we’re just young in some key spots,” Thompson said. “I think these young girls are going to be really good players, they’re just inexperienced right now, and some of our older girls are just inexperienced at some of the positions we’re playing. It’s showed up a little in some games.” 

West Laurens dropped its season opener 3-1 at Vidalia on Aug. 7, unable to get enough offense – besides freshman Audrie Edenfield’s solo home run in the seventh – going against the overpowering Tori Polke, who allowed only four additional hits and struck out eight. 

But the runs came around nicely as the Raiders split the next two in shootout fashion, scraping by East Laurens 10-9 in the first at home, then falling 13-10 at Perry the following night last week. 

Saturday, they scored double-digits in a third-straight, rolling past Greenbrier 10-4, in a first of two on a neutral field back at Vidalia. There was some healthy offense in the second of the day, before weather cut short what turned out as a 6-6 no-decision against Jeff Davis. 

Freshman Paisley Powell homered in an 11-2 win over Johnson County earlier this week before Madison Brown provided a needed jolt of power in the fifth inning of Thursday’s home tilt with a tough Veterans team, ultimately a third loss by the final of 4-3. 

That one proved to be as quiet offensively as any since the first, in a duel of senior Peyton Crabb, and the Veterans tandem of Caidence Scott and Maddy Kinkade. 

It was scoreless until West Laurens drew first blood with a Powell single, two ground balls to move her up and an RBI by Ella Thompson. 

Veterans struck back to go up 2-1, getting two into scoring position with two outs for a two-RBI hit by Bella Fendley. But the Raiders answered, as Brown annihilated one to left field to drive in Maggie Shea Lord, to re-take the lead in the bottom half. 

Some insurance failed in the bottom of the sixth, and they weren’t quite able to slam the door in the seventh, as two hard-hit liners found holes, then a split second of indecision on a grounder cost them an out at first. 

The no-out, bases-loaded situation could have ended up much worse, but only resulted in a run to tie the game, as Kalleigh Stokes dumped an RBI single into shallow left field, then the go-ahead on Kinkade’s sac fly. 

West infielders turned in the routine plays to get the rest of the way out of the inning. But the multiple chances to put away a lead that narrowly got away loomed large, and the subject of those missed opportunities was one that Thompson hammered pretty hard in the postgame huddle.  

“We’ve got to go close out an inning when we get a lead,” he said. “We had a big hit the inning before, had a girl in scoring position, Ella gets a hit, and we go up 1-0. We’ve gotta be able to go back out that next top of the inning and slam the door right there. We can’t let them claw back in it, get some momentum and take the lead again. We’ve gotta go shut the door right there.” 

Back-to-back groundouts to open up the bottom of the seventh drastically lessened chances of a bid to win or force extra innings. Despite a glimmer of two-out hope from Powell, who doubled into the right field corner to put the tying run in scoring position, another routine ball on the infield by the next batter ended the game. 

“That was a big home run to give us the lead,” Thompson said. “We just couldn’t make enough pitches and make enough plays to hold it there in the end.” 

Working some things out… 

With seniors Chandler Malone and Allie Sahli, and the junior Brown, bringing the team’s largest veteran presence at the three outfield positions, and also at the plate, the Raiders’ biggest questions are mostly positioned around the horn, where Lord, a converted outifleder, has taken over at short, and the pitching rotation of Crabb, Edenfield and sophomore Demmie Moss have formed a revolving platoon between the circle and corner infield spots, based on alternating pitchers. 

The trio in the circle is solid, but all three are still getting a feel for being a regular starter. 

“It’s a little different this year,” Thompson said. “The past six, seven, eight years, we pretty much knew who our No. 1 was going to be for the most part. This year, we’ve got three girls, and they’ve all pitched and we’ve used all three of them in several games. 

“Peyton threw pretty good today, and then Demmie threw pretty good on Tuesday. We talked about it, this might be one of those years where we just have to kind of rotate girls, and go with the hot hand, ,one for a couple innings, another one for a couple of innings and change pitchers for another couple innings, so we’ve done that several times. We’ve just gotta keep working till we find the right combination and figure out what’s gonna work for us.” 

Both regular catchers, Rilyn Smith and Kinsley Moore, have played well, but are likewise freshmen. 

Those same themes of inexperience will come into play all year as West Laurens takes it game-to-game, with hopes of doing what it can to match up and find a way to win against a schedule that’s going to be pretty evenly-matched up and down. 

Most of the Raiders’ traditional non-region opponents are strong this year, and have good pitching that will challenge their inexperience at the plate, making those extra runs – scored, and given up – a big key in pulling out the close ones.   

In the region, they’re returning to a double round-robin as a member of 3-AAAA, which includes defending 4-AAA champ Harlem and well-established programs out of Southeast Bulloch and Long County, among others, but drastically fewer pushovers than the former league with its heavy concentration of less-established programs in the Augusta area. 

West Laurens will win its share, but are likely to get beat up a little along the way as well. The reduced margin for error makes it important to get it done, whether it’s at the plate or in the field, in the games you have a chance to win. For the moment, West Laurens (3-3 overall) is batting about 50-50 in that department. 

But just two weeks in, there’s still a lot of softball that remains to be played. 

“We’re getting better,” Thompson said. “We’re trying to get the feel of the game, the speed of the game, and we’ve kind of gradually gotten better every single game, and our goal is to be playing our best at the end. So hopefully we can get to there.”