The regular season for the Crawfordsville Softball team didn’t go the way they had hoped. With just two wins, both against county rival North Montgomery, heading into sectional play Crawfordsville is still feeling optimistic about their chances. The Athenians will travel to Lebanon today to open the Class 3A Sectional 25 against host school Lebanon. The Tigers swept the Athenians in both meetings this season.
“We hope to start against them how we started when we played them the first time,” Crawfordsville coach Kevin Kellerman said. “To be successful we just have to avoid the big inning and that’s something we’ve struggled with this year. We believe that we can play with them, but it’s going to take a complete team effort for that to happen and we’re on the verge of that happening so no better time than the sectional for it to happen.”
The Athenian offense has at times this season been electric and it’s capable of putting up some big numbers on the scoreboard. Junior Olivia Reed leads the team with a .524 average. Laine Schlicher comes into the postseason hitting .464 and senior Allyson Barton comes in with an average of .444. Brooklyn Mills leads the team with five home runs.
Senior Kaylie Miller has also seen improvement as the teams starting pitcher. Miller who took her sophomore year off and then didn’t have a season last year due to COVID-19 is starting to minimize the mistakes.
Miller’s improvement is a microcosm of what the entire Athenian team has done this season in terms of getting better. The scoreboard and record may not show it but Kellerman and his players know that they’ve come a long way
“We’re very close to opening some people’s eyes,” Kellerman said. “Offensively we’re starting to play a lot more consistent than we have been with getting production 1-9. They know they can hit now its my job to get them to believe they can win.”
The Athenians and Tigers will get underway from Lebanon with a first pitch scheduled for 6 pm. The winner will move on to take on North Montgomery on Tuesday.
