The Lincoln County High School Lady Panthers softball program entered the last week of regular season action sporting a fine 17-7 overall win-loss record. Our defending Class AAA state champions jump started this final week of the 2012 campaign with an impressive 10-0 blasting of Wayne County foe, Spring Valley. The Lady Timber Wolves never stood a chance in this early week contest.
Following the easy victory over Spring Valley, the Lady Panthers headed to Cabell Midland to participate in the annual Mountain State Athletic Conference (MSAC) Tournament. LCHS entered the tourney seeded #3 in the MSAC. The Lady Knights of Cabell Midland High School nabbed the #1 seed, while St. Albans and Hurricane grabbed the #2 and #4 seeds. Midland took on Hurricane in their opening round contest and fell to the Lady Redskins 6-3. The night of upsets continued when St. Albans slipped by our gals 7-5 to shock the MSAC faithful.
The upsets on Tuesday night led to a championship game featuring Hurricane and St. Albans, while Lincoln County and top seeded Cabell Midland met in the consolation contest. The Lady Redskins of Hurricane went on to claim the MSAC title with an 8-6 victory over St. Albans. LCHS wasted little time in downing the Lady Knights of Cabell Midland 7-1. With the rout of Cabell Midland our ladies finished third in the MSAC Tournament.
A game scheduled Thursday versus Huntington High School was canceled due to the heavy rain. Friday was senior night at LCHS and the Lady Panthers honored five seniors by crushing George Washington High School 8-0 to break the 20 win mark on the season. Kelci Browning, Alyssa Cook, Aleks Lawson, Casey Jo Owens, and Amanda Salmons were honored during the Senior Night festivities. Lincoln County led by these five fine young athletes complied a regular season record of 20-8.
Now the second season begins, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week will mark the sectional tournament. Lincoln County will battle Hurricane High School (25-5) and Winfield High School (8-10). Lincoln County will host the sectional tournament. I am excited about the tournament and softball this time of year. This is the time of year that our Lady Panthers turn up their play and generally wade through the competition. The fine senior leadership of Browning, Cook, Lawson, Owens, and Salmons will lead the Panthers through the sectional, semi-regional and regional back to the state tournament and ultimately to back-to-back state titles. The Lady Panthers softball program excels during May and I see no reason for this season to be any different.
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On the lighter side of things, the 2012 Spring Gobbler season has been a total bust. The weather was horrible all opening week leading many local Lincoln County hunters to sound their frustrations. Wednesday was generally the best day of the first week to hunt and really the only day that the gobblers actually gobbled early in the morning. Hopefully, the weather will be better this week, allowing Lincoln sportsmen the opportunity to bag that big Tom before the season progresses much further. However, the weather forecast calls for heavy rain much of the week mixed with mid-80s temperatures.