East Laurens softball will rely on elite pitching, experienced defense; needs hitters to excel in 2026

Over the last couple seasons, the guard has slowly changed hands from one generation to the next on the East Laurens softball field.  

But the Falcons have continued to rely on many of the same things that have consistently made them a team to beat, and region contender. 

Behind seasons of 20-plus wins that have been clockwork since 2023 are some trends of strong pitching and defense that figure to continue for East this fall, though it will have some new key characters taking over as faces of the program. 

“We’ve got a different core group,” said head coach Danielle Lowther, whose team is set to open the regular season this Thursday.  

Though there’s a lot for this new squad that’s still coming along, the often-dominant work of rising senior DeAndrea Lowther in the circle, and some pretty consistent glove work in the field behind her, are once again strengths that the Falcons will be able to hang their hats on. 

“This summer, it’s kind of shown us that we have some things we have to work on. But I think we’re going to be OK,” Lowther said. “We went and played at Southern Pines, the scrimmages Coach (Mike) Thompson has every year, and we looked OK at times. Overall, we’ve got a couple of young girls I think are going to be able to help us.” 

Last year’s team, which posted 22 wins and was narrowly edged by ACE Charter in its bid for a region 3-peat, took the brunt of the turnover after the loss of a decent number of longtime leaders who graduated, and largely handled it with flying colors. 

Most of the younger players who debuted now enter 2026 as experienced fixtures in a lineup that will basically have only one new addition in the field – at the hot corner as a backfill for Deanna Lowther. 

Jordan Kimsey, one of multiple freshmen who were part of a competition for the open job this summer, was East’s expected starter at third going into the first week of action. 

While a second graduate in Abigail Holt also played shortstop, her season-ending injury pretty early on last fall got the changeover at that position taken care of a season ahead of time, as Jayden Foskey stepped in and held it down for the rest of the year. 

The young group, also featuring ninth graders in Olivea Jackson, Amiya O’Neal, Avery Smith and Layla Rogers who held their own in the field and at the plate, had its occasional issues with errors that sprung up in some key games, but bounced back more often than not. 

After a haunting miscue helped ACE walk off with a tiebreaking run to clinch first place in the second game of the teams’ region series, the Falcons faced some similar adversity in the troublesome sixth innings of their three-game first round playoff series against Swainsboro. That, they would survive in order to advance and reach the round of 16. 

In all, East gave up only 58 total runs, an average of less than two per game. The gloves and experience the Falcons have returning  will give them a good shot of building on that mark this year. 

“We’ve got a solid defense coming back,” Coach Lowther said. 

Their undisputed strength will be the senior battery of DeAndrea Lowther, in the circle, and Reagan Sasser, behind the plate, whose chemistry goes back to “since they were playing Little League, and even before then,” Coach Lowther said. 

DeAndrea, who leads with a rocket fastball, has mown her way to a 19-10 record and a 1.91 ERA as an ace of the staff since her sophomore year, fanning more than 200 hitters (a career-best 145 in just over 100 innings last fall). 

She’ll once again have a case for best hurler in the region, though realignment will bring in some top-notch competition as Vidalia and Tori Polke, with whom she plays travel ball, join the mix. 

The new league, now labeled 2-AA, got smaller as much of a former Macon contingent – with the exception of ACE – was bumped up to AAA, but likely became one of the classification’s toughest, as softball goes, with the incorporation of the Indians and Swainsboro. 

Each have some strong recent tradition, and a good bit of history matching up with East Laurens whether, in the Tigers’ case, as a former region rival and postseason foe last year, or Vidalia’s, as perennial non-region opponents who’ve had some exciting battles (2025’s both heartbreaking losses for the Falcons that came in extra innings). 

Macon’s Gryphons, who have built as strong a program as any mentioned here, and Bleckley County, which has been right there in the conversation each of the last three years, will make it a pretty wide-open race, and a table that should be difficult for any team to run. 

Everybody’s got strong pitching. Who can scratch out the hits and the runs needed to rise above the rest? 

That will be the key question for a Falcon ballclub that graduated both its best two bats from a 2025 team that relied a lot more on timely hits than the big bashes that a lineup heavier on power and speed used to achieve a roughly identical scoring average the year before. 

“I think we’ll be in the same boat… in regards to hitting. We’ve just got to manufacture runs some type of way,” Coach Lowther said. “We’re working on that day by day, but I think we’re probably going to be one of the top three teams in the region.”