Young West Laurens softball team measures up to high bar, heads to playoffs as No. 2 seed

West Laurens softball never relaxes its standards. 

But if the Raiders ever were to, it would have been completely understandable coming into this season, which they were set to begin with not only an especially young roster, but also a brand new pitching staff and multiple infield starters playing out of their native positions. 

High expectations set by coaches, and players themselves, stood tall despite some early struggles for the developing team over an up-and-down month of August. 

Instead of making excuses, West Laurens made progress. 

And as the regular season played out, the Raiders measured up pretty well, in a strong finish that once again has them entering the state playoffs as one of AAAA’s top seeds. 

“I’m surprised a little bit,” said West Laurens head coach Mike Thompson. “I really feel like our young kids have grown up a lot this season. Where we started, with so much youth and inexperience, and now where we’re at to this point, it’s just amazing. It’s really a credit to them and how hard they’ve worked.” 

The Raiders, with last Thursday’s 10-6 win to complete a season sweep of Houston County, wrapped up with a strong overall record of 21-7 and a 6-2 mark in the region, good to earn them the second overall seed in the state tournament, right behind No. 1 and 3-AAAA champion Long County. 

West Laurens will open at home Wednesday with 31st-seed Hardaway.  

The Raiders’ 23rd-year head coach prides his program on refusing to lower a bar that past region- and state championship teams have positioned higher and higher every year. And he borrowed a line from longtime Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin in stressing that point during preseason practices and games that made clear this rebuilding squad would have to come a long way to reach it once again. 

When Thompson took a moment to call attention to that remarkable progress during a team huddle at one point last week, his players weren’t nearly as impressed, quickly echoing back the phrase he and assistant coaches had made a slogan from way back in the summertime. 

“I said something to them about the season, and all, and one of the girls said, ‘Coach, the standard is the standard. We expect to do this, we expect to win, we expect to be in Columbus, we expect to be there at the end, we expect to be a top five team,'” Thompson said. “They’ve really worked hard. They’ve put in the work, and it’s really paid off and we’ve jelled and we seem like we’re playing some of our best ball here at the end, which is great, where you need to. 

“I’ve told them all season long, let’s just keep getting better. Let’s improve every week. Let’s get better at what we’re not doing great every week. And let’s keep getting better and at the end of the season, we’ll be alright. And that’s what they’ve done.” 

Losses in four of the fall’s first eight games proved there was a lot to figure out. But when region play began in September, West Laurens got on a winning streak, and didn’t stop playing confident softball. 

After reeling off eight in a row, before a heartbreaking loss to Long County interrupted the run, the Raiders would go on to win nine of their last 11, in the process beating several teams – Perry, Long and Telfair County – that they had lost to a first go-round. 

They finished the regular season with five consecutive victories.

“I haven’t really looked at how many we’ve won straight,” Thompson said. “I just keep telling them, the next game, this is the most important game. With the power rankings, regions really don’t matter. Every game’s a region game.” 

Unlike the past several seasons in a few top-heavy regions, there weren’t many pushover games in or outside of the Raiders’ 3-AAAA slate. 

The only teams the entire fall the Raiders beat by double digits were Liberty County, Treutlen and Wilcox County. 

“Our schedule, looking back from when I made it to now, I didn’t know it was going to be as high quality,” Thompson said. “I think our PSR, our power ranking score for opponent wins is the highest in all of AAAA, which says, we’ve seen quality competition. There’s been no games where like, this is a win, we’re going to get a win today, other than maybe one or two. Every game, it could go either way. We’ve played really good people. We’ve seen really good pitching.” 

By leaps and bounds… 

It was clear from the beginning that this small, but talented roster had a lot of potential. Just how well the group tapped into that as it gained vital experience this fall was pretty staggering. 

Chief among the pleasant surprises is this team’s potent offense, which is averaging 8.4 runs and was held to three or less in a game by just four opponents. It was also a lineup that had zero dropoff in power. 

“The school record for home runs is 30, and we hit 27 last year with those three big bats that we had in the middle of our order,” Thompson said. “We hit 27 home runs this year with the girls that we have, and if you had told me at the beginning of the year we’d hit 27 home runs, I’d’ve told you you were a liar.” 

That trend has owed as much to the boppers – Demmie Moss, Madison Brown, Paisley Powell and Audrie Edenfield – as it does to others in the order who swing quality bats, but tend to hit more for average. 

Ella Thompson, who’s left the yard a few times and slugged up a storm as one of the team’s top three in doubles, and Chandler Malone, who’s had a knack for finding the gap and went 3-for-4 in the momentum-boosting win over Long County Sept. 29, are great examples from the top two spots in the order. Maggie Shea Lord and Allie Sahli have also continued to provide quality at-bats and baserunning. 

The talented first-year players joining the squad off of multiple region championships in middle school were a little fresh-faced at the start, but likely grew the most between game 1 and 28. 

“Our freshmen have really exceeded our expectations,” Thompson said. “Kinsley Moore has been fabulous behind the plate. Paisley Powell has had an unbelievable season for a freshman, she’s hit the cover off of it. Same thing with Audrie Edenfield. She pitched well when we needed her to, and played third. At the plate, she’s been great.”

West Laurens’ biggest question marks at the start of the season were positioned around the infield, where three of four spots would belong to new starters, and the two in the middle were both players brand new to theirs. 

There were plenty of inevitable defensive hiccups in the early going. 

“It took us a few games to kind of iron some things out,” Thompson said. 

After several games, the Raiders opted to flip-flop Thompson, who had begun the season at her more familiar second base, and Lord, who had played second before, but was a total newbie on the left side of the infield. The switch-up proved to put both players in spots where they were more comfortable, and their improved consistency – both were part of two double plays versus Long County – has reflected that. 

Another key puzzle piece was the emergence of Peyton Crabb as the true ace of a pitching staff that, early on, was rotating multiple young hurlers that had them juggling multiple defensive lineups as each played musical chairs between the circle, first and third. 

The senior, since that early-September turning point, has “really settled in as the No. 1 and has really been lights out.”  

“She’s really done everything we’ve asked her to do,” Thompson said. “A lot of fastpitch pitchers try to throw four, five, six pitches. And we’ve been telling her since her freshman year, if you’ll just throw three pitches, and throw those three good, you’ll be able to get outs. Let’s don’t make it rocket science. Let’s be able to throw one pitch inside, one pitch outside and be able to change speeds. And she’s really bought into that and done a great job.” 

Her hold on the main spot has freed up Moss, Edenfield and Powell to focus their full attention on hitting and playing the field. 

Offensively and defensively, the Raiders seem to have found a sweet spot that will make them a force to be reckoned with in the postseason. 

“I feel like at this point, you’re going to have to pitch really well to slow us down, because we’ve not been shut out, not one time, all year long,” Thompson said. “We swung the bat really well. And we’ve played better defense, especially the last half of the season.” 

He feels good about this week’s first-round matchup with Hardaway, which finished fifth in region 1-AAAA with a 13-17 overall record. 

Presuming a win, the West Laurens would host either Adairsville or Mary Persons in a second-rounder that will amount to a test, one way or the other. 

The Raiders are more familiar with the Bulldogs from seeing, and beating, them on a neutral field in Milledgeville back in mid-September. 

“We know they’ve got a pretty solid team,” Thompson said. 

But the Tigers have a nearly identical record, and some quality pitching that will make them a tough out as well. 

“I like our chances, the way we’re playing, and like the girls said, the standard is the standard,” Thompson said. “It’s just what they expect and what we expect out of them. They’re expected to play at a certain level, and we’ve told them that all year long, whether you’re a freshman or a senior, you’re expected to play and perform at a certain level, and they’ve bought into that.”