With a new region and a trimmed-down playoff system, the Thomson High School softball team put making the playoffs on this season's "to do" list.
Ending the season with a 6-10 record, the Lady Bulldogs came in fourth place in the sub-region, snagging the final region playoff spot.
"In the past everybody got to go," said Head Coach Lisa Cody. "We had more teams this year, so it would have taken too long to do a full region tournament. We had to put the stipulation on it that only the top four could go, so that was our goal to try to get at least to the top four. And we did that."
At the region playoffs on Saturday, The Lady Bulldogs fell to South Effingham 12-0 in their first game of the double elimination tournament. The second game was a tight 8-7 loss to Jefferson County in extra innings.
Despite the early exit from the region playoffs, Coach Cody was proud of her team's season-long effort and the development she saw throughout the year.
"We made lots of improvement in the season as a whole from past seasons," Coach Cody said. "When I say that I mean yeah we didn't have an awesome winning 100 percent record or anything like that, but we were in every game."
This year, many of the Lady Bulldogs' games were close, all the way to the final out. Losing several games in extra innings was tough, but Coach Cody was glad to be in a position to win.
"A lot of our games were a lot closer, and a lot of the games we lost, we lost them. Nobody just outright beat us," she said. "We became our own worst enemy in most of our games with errors and then not having the hits to back them up."
Another positive from the season is that many of the younger players on the roster got playing time which will help in the future, according to Coach Cody. She said those younger players will build a strong base of leaders for next year's team.
