The area title stays at home with the Wetumpka softball team, which completed the sweep of Class 6A Area 4 foes with a win over Stanhope Elmore last Tuesday.
Similar to what has propelled the Indians all year, the bats were on fire and defense came to play in a 12-1 win over the Mustangs. The Indians racked up a monstrous 17 hits on the day — including four from Ava Farmer and a home run from Taylor Carlisle to lead off the sixth frame.
Despite the success Wetumpka has had all year long on the offensive side, what has stood out to coach Daryl Otwell, especially over the past few weeks, has been its defense. Against Stanhope Elmore, the pitching of Abigail Adams was dominant. Through six innings, Adams struck out five batters while just walking one and allowed four hits on the day — with all four coming at the end of the game.
“I thought our defense has been really good the last couple weeks,” Otwell said. “I thought we did really good executing on defense. I thought Adams pitched well, so a lot of good.”
Otwell also praised his team for his combined success at the plate, along with the four hits from Farmer — five other players finished with two or more hits on the day.
“We've had a solid year top to bottom this year,” Otwell said. “If we have a couple girls kind of struggling out at the plate, we've been fortunate enough that the bottom half of the lineup has been really good. When the top half is hitting it and the bottom half is hitting it, we put up big numbers, we're very athletic ball clubs.”
The win over Stanhope Elmore makes Wetumpka the outright winner of the area with the privilege to host the area tournament, which in turn can help the Indians get a better playoff seeding.
Otwell wants to make sure their foot is not off the gas pedal and continue to do what they have done all year. However, he wants to make sure they continue to show out on the defensive end because he knows they will see better-hitting teams as they continue to progress.
“We got a few things that tighten up a little bit the further you go into this thing,” Otwell said. “Each pitch gets so much more important but the main thing is just keep doing what we're doing, keep having good bats, throwing strikes and playing really good defense. That's kind of our game is playing really good defense and getting base runners on and running the bases.”
Wetumpka rounds out the remaining games of the regular season against Elmore County and Tallassee. The area tournament will begin on Monday when the Indians will face the winner of Stanhope Elmore and Percy Julian.
