Athens softball is putting in the work they need this season to keep up with their competition. Coach Travis Barnes says the 6A state champions know that this year they are being chased for the championship.

“They’ve got to have a mentality of ‘We are the state champions in 6A, and every team we play wants to beat us. Every team we play wants to beat the state champion,’” he said. “I find myself feeling that way also. You have it in your hand; now you got to try to hold onto it.”

The team has a few girls returning from last season, including Morgan Stiles, who has committed to play softball at Oklahoma State University. She was first team all-state last year as short stop, has hit five runs, and is batting .607 this year. He also said another returner for the team is Haley Waggoner, who has also hit five runs for the team and is batting .467 so far. She is their primary catcher. Barnes said Waggoner and Abby Tucker both were on the all-tournament team last year, so having both of them return is good as they try to fill some of the roles that they lost with seniors.

Now, the team is coming off of a tournament win last weekend and a win against their first area team this week. But Coach Barnes says he’s still looking at all the moving parts of the team.

“What I like is that we did it with different line-ups so we’re able to put different people different places,” Barnes said. “We have three pitchers. All of them are getting to throw equal innings and we’re being successful.”

He says that is good because, as the season goes on, the line-up could look completely different from how it might be set up now. Coach Barnes wants the team to be preparing for that all year long.

“I talk to the girls all the time that ‘We’re playing today to be better in May,’” he said.

The team dominated their first area game against Hazel Green 12-1.

“Hazel Green has always been a rival,” he said. “You always want to win the area games, because if you’re first place in the season in the area you get to host the area tournament in May.”

He said that offense has been their strong suit early in the season, hitting .387 as a team over their first 11 games. They’ve also hit 21 home runs over those games.

“We have players from top to bottom that are hitting,” he said.

Barnes said the defense could be improved, despite their strong showing against Hazel Green.

“We’re giving up more runs than I like,” Barnes said about the season on a whole so far. “Our pitching has been pretty consistent. Our pitchers walk more batters than I would like.”

He said in the Hazel Green game they walked a few people in the first inning and the bases were loaded, but the team was able to get out of that without letting up a run.

That was lucky, and they don’t need to make a habit out of putting runners on base with walks, Barnes said. But, that game allowed the team to see what it could do on defense.

“We gave up nine hits — which that’s quite a bit — but we only gave up one run, which shows you that our pitchers and defense are making the plays at the right time,” he said. “In that first inning, if they had a big hit right there, it might have changed the whole game.”

Getting the stop in that inning was important because the Golden Eagles would keep up their momentum and go on to score six runs in the bottom.

The team played Columbia in another area match-up Wednesday evening. The News Courier will follow up with that game. The team also plays Huntsville on Thursday and travels for games this coming weekend.

Coach Barnes says traveling for games is important for the team to get used to playing while staying in hotels, which prepares them for the state tournament.

“We get to see competition that we don’t usually get to see every week,” he said. “Gets us out of North Alabama and just play some teams other places.”