HAMPTON, Ga. — Over the offseason, the Alcovy Lady Tigers set out two main goals for 2022: win the region and qualify for state playoffs. They accomplished that and more on Tuesday with a 8-7 win over Woodward Academy. 

In their region title quest, leaders Kaitlyn Williams, CeCe Williams and Ashlyn Hoy feel like they sent a message to any Alcovy softball naysayers. 

 “To win a region championship and prove everybody wrong not only in the region, but in the county that we are that great team is exciting,” Kaitlyn said. “There were a lot of people saying that we couldn’t beat that team three times. But we did it. It doesn’t matter that we went into extra innings, we pulled it together and we came through for each other.” 

Claiming the region title capped off a regular season in which Alcovy went 24-6 overall with a flawless 16-0 record in Region 3-AAAAAA.

Winning 24 games is the first time since the 2014 season that the Lady Tigers won more than 20 games in a season. It's also the first time since 2015 where Alcovy won the region. 

Now, Alcovy is headed back to the playoffs in back-to-back seasons for the first time since the 2014 and 2015 seasons. 

Going back to the playoffs fueled the team's motivation all season long, according to CeCe. 

"A lot of people were saying, ‘That was luck that they [made it to the playoffs last year.’]," CeCe said. "We just had to prove that it was not just luck but this year we were going to make it further." 

Alcovy did just that by going from the No. 4 seed a year ago to now claiming the top spot in region. 

The Lady Tigers had some noteworthy wins along the way, too. They defeated Grovetown, Newton, Campbell, Lamar County and George Walton Academy. They did so while dominating most of their region opponents by an average of 16-1, which featured eight shutouts. 

Hoy believes the team’s determination makes them better now than they were at the beginning of the year. 

"We’re leaving it all out on the field," Hoy said. "Even if something goes wrong, we don’t let it affect the rest of the game and we keep moving on. And, with our at-bats, if one person gets on, we know the next person is going to get on."

It has been a long journey for Alcovy to get to this point, though. While regular season action began in early August, the Lady Tigers started working toward this season back in February. 

The players started in the weight room to help build strength and maintained their conditioning throughout the offseason. On top of that, and traditional practice, Kaitlyn said that the players would often call each other to go practice and workout together away from the high school. 

Fueling that work ethic has been the team’s desire to become a better team overall. 

The season is far from over as far as the Lady Tigers are concerned. Next up are the state playoffs with Alcovy hosting the Riverwood Lady Raiders who are 10-16 overall with a 6-6 record in Region 4-AAAAAA.

The Lady Tigers have their eyes set on a trip to Columbus. Kaitlyn feels like coming off such a close win on Tuesday can help propel this team far in the postseason. 

“We need to keep our hunger and adrenaline up after this win,” Kaitlyn said. “I feel like we have a lot of adrenaline in this game, especially when we got into extra innings.” 

Now that Alcovy is back on top of the region and is the No. 1 seed, they know they’re going to get each team’s best shot from here on out. 

The team remains confident to still put together a playoff push. 

“This is a really big statement win,” CeCe said. “I think we proved to a lot of people that opponents aren’t just going to run through us. And, after this win, we can only go up from here.”