Lady Wildcats set to host West Lincoln Friday

Kemper County’s R’dashia Naylor closes in on a dazzling catch in right field during the Lady Wildcats’ contest against Nanih Waiya last week.

Rocky Higginboth

Kemper County’s Kyla Grace fields a ball on the infield during the Lady Wildcats’ contest against visiting Nanih Waiya.

Rocky Higginboth

Kemper County softball coach Freddy Thomas gives a little encouragement to on-deck hitter Beverly Billy during last week’s action.

Rocky Higginboth

Posted Sunday, August 28, 2022 12:00 am

By Austin Bishop

The Kemper County High School fast-pitch softball team has checked so many things off its list this season that the Lady Wildcats had to start a new one.

The first item to tackle is the first-round of the MHSAA Class 2A State Softball Playoffs that are set to begin on the KCHS campus on Friday at 5.

“Overall going into (the playoffs) this group of girls have already accomplished so many goals,” said KCHS head coach Freddy Thomas of his 10-4 Lady Wildcats. “I’m really happy.

“As we started looking at the season it was clear that the only teams on our schedule that should outright beat us because of their talent and experience were Choctaw County and Nanih Waiya. We had the potential to beat the rest of them. And they went out and did that.”

He said the checklist was plain and simple for his team as the season began. “We wanted to play a full seven innings,” he said. “We wanted to win a game, then we wanted to run rule somebody. We did all of those things. The playoffs were not even in our vocabulary early in the season. It was just about teaching fundamentals and building team unity.”

After hosting West Lincoln on Friday at 5, the Lady Wildcats will travel to the Brookhaven area to play the WLHS Lady Bears in the second and possibly third games of the series beginning at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The Lady Wildcats lost to the Lady Chargers of Choctaw County 11-4 on Monday, after losing to Nanih Waiya 14-0 last week. All four losses have come to Nanih Waiya and CCHS.

Just two days ago (Tuesday) they closed out the regular season at Noxapater.

Neera Bell recorded seven strikeouts in the circle for KCHS, while Orlandrea Houston picked up the lone hit in the game for the Lady Wildcats.

Despite losing the game, Kemper County outhit Choctaw County 7 to 6 on Monday night. Bell, Rodezah Smith, and Beverly Smith had two hits each for KCHS in the game.