Eagles aim for strong finish to ‘17 season

There is perhaps no better encapsulation of the Oak Mountain High School softball team than its comeback victory over Hoover on March 21.

Through the first three innings of that game, the Eagles held a 4-2 edge over the Bucs. Call that the regular season portion of the 2016 schedule, when Oak Mountain’s explosive offense and solid pitching led the Eagles to a 30-12 record and a Class 7A, Area 5 tournament championship.

But in the top of the fourth inning, Oak Mountain surrendered six runs, allowing the air to escape out of the team’s proverbial balloon. Equate that to the Eagles’ trip to the North Central Regional last spring, where they were outscored a combined 15-3 by Vestavia Hills and Hoover in an abrupt end to the season.

After a few innings of little energy and no signs of life, the Eagles caught fire in the seventh inning, erasing the deficit completely and tying the game at 8-8 in what is normally the final inning. 

In the eighth, Oak Mountain got over the hump, as junior catcher Cassady Greenwood stepped up to the plate to lead off the frame and promptly belted a home run to give the Eagles the walk-off win.

“I was so happy I did that for my team,” Greenwood said. “It was an amazing feeling going around the bases and seeing my whole team waiting on me at the plate.”

“As soon as she hit it, I knew it was gone,” said senior first baseman O’Neil Roberson.

Senior second baseman and pitcher Abby Jones said she thought the same thing.

“Once I heard it hit the bat, I said, ‘Yep, that’s gone,’” she said.

Like last year, Oak Mountain has a pair of senior leaders, as Roberson and Jones have taken on the role vacated by now-college players Carmyn Greenwood and Ashlee Sanders, and have learned firsthand how to be leaders of a team.

Greenwood (Auburn) and Sanders (Mississippi State) signed with SEC programs, leaving quite the void for Roberson and Jones to fill. Jones admitted it was a challenge at the beginning of the year.

“We didn’t really know how to show the younger players how to do stuff,” she said.

But with the abundance of young players Oak Mountain has, progress has occurred and will hopefully continue as the season nears its apex.

“We have a lot of young players, and the communication has gotten a lot better,” Roberson said.

For Jones, she is in her final season of organized softball, and she said she hopes to have a successful senior season after the sour taste from last season’s end, something she said has motivated her this spring.

“I just want to have fun and do the best we can and go as far as we can and make the most out of my last season, and have fun with it because I’m not going on to the next level,” Jones said.

Roberson is heading on to Mississippi State as one of the key pieces to the Bulldogs’ 2017 signing class.

“Just finally getting there, because I’ve been committed there since my freshman year,” she said. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel real, but now it’s starting to become a reality.”

The two seniors can only hope the final two innings of the Hoover game serve as a microcosm for the final stretch of the season, but the Eagles have proven they can overcome a challenge.

“It shows us that we don’t need to give up on ourselves,” Jones said.