Pee Dee softball team continues to roll on with 17-1 record
Golden Eagles preparing for run at fifth consecutive state championship
Mullins – And the beat goes on.
For the Pee Dee Academy softball team that is.
The Golen Eagles haave won four consecutive SCISA state championships and appear to marching toward making it five in a row.
PDA is 17-1 on the season. The only loss came to St. James, the defending South Carolina High School League AAAAA Division II state runner-up, in a time-limit game in the championship game of the Pee Dee Pitch-Off in Florence.
“This is a great group of girls, they get along well and are playing pretty well,” said head coach Will Eskridge. “We know how capable our returners are, and we've been pleased with how well the new girls have hit thus far this season.
“We have several very talented and fundamentally sound players, but still have some areas to clean up and correct to get where we want to be. The good news is they have the ability and the time to do what we need them to do.”
The Eagles have four returning starters led by senior pitcher Maddie Coward. The left-hander is dominant in the circle and at the plate.
The Wofford commitment has a 0.91 earned run average and 89 strikeouts in 59 2/3 innings pitched. At the plate, she had a team high .605 batting average with eight doubles, a triple, a home run and a team high 33 runs batted in while hitting third in the batting order.
Freshman Addison Hasty returns at shortstop and is the leadoff hitter. Junior Azeleigh Arnette returns at third and hits in the 2 hole. The cleanup hitter is freshman newcomer Dinah Johnson, who plays first.
Senior catcher Leah Nettles is a returning starter and hits fifth followed by sophomore Kayden Pearson at second base. Rounding out the batting order are junior rightfielder Carly Carroll, senior leftfielder Catherine Ficik and freshman centerfielder Lilly Grace Rowell.
Hasty was hitting .538 with a team high 26 runs scored, while Arnette was battig .410 with 25 runs. She had also worked 28 innings and had allowed just one unearned run.
Johnson was batting .444 witih 20 RBI, Nettles was hitting .394 with 16 RBI, and Pearson was hitting .375.
The other members of the team are sophomore Shelley Lane, juniors Sara Bethea and Chloe Hasty and freshman Bree Wallace.
Eskridge sees plenty of ways the Eagles could improve as the state tournament draws near.
“As a team we could select better pitches to swing at,” he said. “That would help us a lot, and baserunning! We need some of the younger, less experienced players to learn to be better baserunners, which usually comes with experience. Defensively, the on-field communication needs to improve.”
