Hornets anxious to return to state

The Chelsea softball team does not lack confidence under first-year head coach Heather Mitchell Lee. 

The Hornets have no reason to be after reaching the Class 6A state tournament a year ago, in which they shut out Hillcrest in the first game before falling 1-0 to Southside and falling flat in an early morning game the next day.

“We did good in the state tournament for our first time as a team going there,” Mallory Heisler said. “It wasn’t easy to get there, and we had to go through a lot to get there.

“With this team we have now, we can get back there,” she continued.

In high school sports, so much maturity happens in that four-year span of a student-athlete’s tenure at a school, and the Hornets’ situation is no different.

“I think they’ve grown, they’ve probably even matured a little bit, and their want-to might be a little more because it’s their senior year,” Lee said.

There are seven of those seniors that Lee spoke of, two of whom have signed scholarships to play college softball. Shortstop Alex Smithson will play at Southern Union while McKenzie Bryant will head to Wallace State Community College. 

Count Bryant among the ones who will take what happened last year and apply it to this year.

“I learned that we have to stay together as a team,” she said.

Bryant added that she would be disappointed if the season ends in any other way than hoisting a state title. Chelsea has one softball title to its name, in 2012, when this team’s seniors were in eighth grade. 

Broken down into its simplest form, the season becomes a survive-and-advance dance starting with the area tournament, with the top two finishers of each area advancing to Qualifying Regionals (Chelsea competes in Area 10 with Oxford and Pell City).

Lee has begun working at a much more focused goal than that. The main thing she emphasizes is not to win the championship. It’s not even to win a game. It’s more involved than that. Win every single pitch.

“I stress to them how important it is, you want to win every pitch…If you win every single pitch in the whole game, then you’re going to win every game,” she said.

Area play began March 15, as the Hornets took a gutsy 1-0 win in 10 innings. Lee’s team showed a key ingredient in that game that she had been anxious about: grit.

If the grit continues to develop along with Chelsea’s pitching presence in the circle, the recipe may be present to set the Hornets over the top. 

A pair of underclassmen in sophomore Sarah Cespedes and freshman Camryn Smith receives the bulk of the innings. Cespedes served as Chelsea’s closer last year, while Smith is in her first year on the varsity. Both pitchers are becoming more comfortable in their roles with each appearance, according to Lee.

Can all those pieces come together? Heisler thinks so.

“I think we’re stronger as a team to make it,” she said.