Hatley softball streaking into 2A North finals

There isn’t much about Hatley’s softball team that jumps off the page, but the Tigers have been a compelling story this postseason.

They’ve swept each of their first three series in the Class 2A playoffs to earn a spot in the North half finals. After beating Bruce in the first round and blowing past J.Z. George in the second, Hatley (19-11) took down Eupora by scores of 4-2 and 5-4 in the quarterfinals.

“We’re at the end of the season, the kids are where they should be,” head coach Chris George said. “They’re confident in what they’re supposed to do. It’s a comfort in the game itself.”

The Tigers’ hitting hasn’t been quite as good in the playoffs as it was in the regular season, but it’s done well enough. In the Game 2 win against Eupora, freshman Kinsley Echols hit a walk-off RBI single in the eighth inning. And she’s not even one of the team’s top hitters, with a .286 average on the season.

Sophomore Raigan Brown leads Hatley with a .397 average and 26 RBIs; junior Kelsey Coffey is hitting .381 with 20 RBIs; and eighth grader Brileigh Lewis is batting .379 from the leadoff spot with 23 RBIs and 30 runs scored.

“You can look at our lineup, and there’s not any statistics that stand out real great, but one through nine they’re all solid. You’ve got to pick your poison there,” George said.

The pitching is really what’s carried the Tigers on this playoff run. The tandem of senior Emily Hill and sophomore McKarlee Tubbs has allowed just seven runs combined over the last six games. Hill is the ace and has a 2.30 ERA, while Tubbs has a 4.07 ERA.

“Hill’s our No. 1, everybody knows that. She’s a little bit harder thrower, Tubbs is a spinner, so they complement each other great,” said George. “You can go back and forth with them. They’re both very confident when they get on the mound. They’re going to challenge hitters and go right at them.”

The next round will be Hatley’s toughest yet as it battles three-time reigning state champion East Union (30-3). The Urchins have one of the best pitchers in the state in Lucy Cochran, not to mention a batting lineup with zero weak spots. But George isn’t dwelling on all that.

“We’re just going to go out and worry about ourselves, what we can do,” he said. “We can’t worry about what the other team does. We want to put good swings on the ball and play defense behind our pitchers and throw strike one and we’ll be all right.”