Ardmore's Madison Lewis slides into third base as Guntersville's Sarah Quigly prepares make the tage. Lewis was out on the play, but Ardmore won the game 1-0.

Another year, another state tournament appearance for Ardmore’s softball team.

The Tigers are headed back to state for fifth time in the last 10 years after finishing runner-up at a regional tournament last week. The top two teams from each regional advance to the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s State Softball Tournament at Montgomery’s Lagoon Park.

Ardmore will play top-ranked Rehobeth at 9 a.m. Friday in the double-elimination tournament.

“It feels pretty good. It’s a humbling experience,” said Ardmore head coach Stephen Baugh. “We’ve worked extremely hard since August and I’m glad to see that hard work pay off. We were excited, but now we’re ready to go down and win the thing.”

In his first season as head coach, Baugh has led Ardmore to a 35-8-1 record and its third state tournament appearance since winning the 4A title in 2010.

Ardmore went 4-1 Thursday and Friday at the North Regional softball tournament at Huntsville’s Kiwanis Sportsplex. The Tigers opened the tournament with a 6-4 win over Russellville, but fell into the elimination bracket with a loss to Scottsboro Thursday night.

Facing an uphill battle, Ardmore won three straight games Friday to come out of the elimination bracket and finish runner-up in Class 5A. Ardmore won a tight game with Guntersville 1-0, followed by an 8-3 win over Lawrence County. The Tigers then beat Alexandria 8-6 to qualify for state.

“It was nerve-racking,” Baugh said. “We were just worried about winning that first game. The second day of tournaments have been good to us this year, so it wasn’t anything new. Our approach was to win the first one and go from there.”

Ardmore made it to the quarterfinals of a Bob Jones tournament featuring some of the state’s elite teams early in the season, then won the Ardmore Round Robin and Limestone County Tournament a few weeks before the playoffs began.

North Regional recap

With the score tied 4-4 against Alexandria, L.B. Smith’s double in the bottom of the fifth drove home three runs that gave Ardmore a 7-4 lead. Smith’s big hit turned out to provide the runs Ardmore needed to advance to state.

After allowing two runs in the sixth, pitcher Sidney Hall and the Ardmore defense shut out the Valley Cubs in the final inning to clinch a berth at the state tournament. Smith finished with a game-high four RBIs on two hits while Mackenzie McCormack also had two hits.

“We tied it up in the fifth and then we had two outs with L.B. (Smith), a freshman, at the plate,” Baugh said. “She hit one off the wall and that sort of broke the ice. That was the hit that decided the game.”

Ardmore used another big fifth-inning rally to beat Lawrence County a few hours earlier at the North Regional. Trailing 3-2, Ardmore scored six runs in the bottom of the fifth to take a 8-3 lead. After Smith’s RBI-single tied the game, Reagan McNeill’s double drove in two runs to win the game. Madison Lewis and Brooklyn Calder also had RBIs during the fifth-inning rally.

McCormack, Smith, McNeill and Lewis all had two hits each for Ardmore in the win over LCHS