U16s tune up for district tourney

ROANOKE RAPIDS — The Roanoke Valley U16 all-star softball team hasn’t

had a lot of time to practice in preparation for the upcoming district

tournament. Head coach Billy Joe Smith said the team only had three

official practices because a lot of his girls play travel ball, so they

decided to get in one final tune up before Friday by scrimmaging

against the U14 all-stars last night at Newsome Field. Smith said the

contest was more than just a warm-up game to his team.

“We’re actually looking at this like the first game of the tournament,”

Smith said before the scrimmage.

The team doesn’t officially start the tournament until Friday at noon

versus Camden.

The U16 bracket only consists of three teams, Cashie is the other, and

Smith figures it should come down to his team and Cashie just like it

did in 2008.

“Cashie is going to be our competition,” Smith said. “I don’t want to

look past (Camden) because that’s when you get beat, when you look past

somebody, but I still think it’s going to be us and Cashie in the

district.”

Smith returns six girls from the 2008 squad that won the district and

went on to the states. What was impressive about their title run last

season was  they did it without a real pitcher.

This season Smith has two true pitchers on his roster and he feels like

that makes them a much better team.

“We actually are a better team this year than we had in the district

last year,” he said. “We won it without a pitcher who pitched any in

high school, this year we have the No. 1 pitcher from Roanoke Rapids

(Bailey Robinson) and the No.1 pitcher from Halifax Academy (Anna

Spragins) going into the district. I feel a whole lot better about the

pitching ... as long as we hit the ball I think we can put up seven or

eight runs a game.”

If the team wins the 2009 district title it will make quite the run for

this group of girls. Smith said dating back to when they were U10, this

group has won more district titles than anyone else, so they know what

it takes to win.

“It’s not a whole lot of coaching involved with this group,” Smith

said. “It’s just a matter of putting them in the right places. We have

a good group so we are  just going to go out and play ball.”