Columbia Academy lost 15 softball games in 2018.
The Lady Bulldogs have lost 14 games since.
And the four folks that helped engineer that surge – centerfielder Karli Quillin, catcher Laney Turner, pitcher Averi Slaughter and first baseman Myleah Hardy – are focused on closing out their high school careers this week in the only fitting manner.
“At the beginning of our five years, it was like ‘we’re going to keep going,” Quillin said. “Now …”
“It’s all or nothing. We want to take it home,” Turner finished. “I’ve been playing since I was 3. It’ll be better to end on a win than a loss.”
Quillin and Hardy will continue to be teammates collegiately, both having signed scholarships with Freed-Hardeman. Turner and Slaughter intend to conclude their careers with this week’s state tournament.
Quillin and Turner both played on the high school varsity squad in 2018, when CA concluded a 14-15 campaign with a loss at eventual Class A state titlist Summertown in the sectionals. A year later, the Lady Bulldogs defeated Summertown for the Class A championship, then went 4-0 before the pandemic cut their 2020 season short.
The COVID year marked the arrival of Slaughter, who played at Santa Fe as a freshman. Last year, Hardy joined the program as a transfer from Lawrence County.
In 2021, Columbia Academy’s first season as a Division II-A program, the Lady ‘Dawgs went 41-2 and claimed their second state tourney title in as many tries.
“We expect to make deep postseason runs,” fifth-year coach Seth Anderson said. “We feel like with our recent success, we’ve kinda climbed up the mountain and now it’s about staying there – which is a lot harder than getting there.
“Everybody gets up when they play us, so we’ve got to bring our best game every time we go out.”
If CA needed a reminder, they got it with their DII-A best-of-three state quarterfinal series. Silverdale forced the deciding contest with a 6-3 Game 2 victory – ending an 18-game win streak for the Lady Bulldogs – before the hosts prevailed in the rubber match.
“We can’t take our talents for granted,” Slaughter said. “Sometimes I feel like … we go into a game thinking we’ve got it in the bag. It takes work still. We’ve got to go out and play to our full potential.”
When that’s the case, for the four seniors in particular, Columbia Academy is pretty tough to handle.
Heading into Spring Fling, Slaughter is 22-5 with a 1.27 earned run average and 240 strikeouts in 143 innings.
“We knew who Averi was because we played against her (at Santa Fe), and several of our girls played travel ball with her,” Anderson said. “So we knew who she was and we knew how talented she was. To be able to bring her in and mix her with the group we had, it’s been great. She really helped take us to the next level.”
Hardy’s hitting .500 with six home runs, 43 runs batted in and 36 runs scored, to go with Quillin’s .400 (18 extra base hits, 51 runs scored) at the top of the order and Turner’s .350 along with stellar work at catcher.
“Ever since we brought her up as an eighth-grader to catch for us, she’s been solid behind the plate,” Anderson said regarding Turner. “She’s had to catch some pretty good pitchers, with some pretty good movement and velocity. We’ve asked a lot of her, to be that field general out there. She’s been nothing but spectacular for us behind the plate.”
Quillin and Hardy, two of the top three hitters in the CA batting order along with junior shortstop Tori Duval, help key the team’s offense – Hardy despite a dropoff from her record-setting performance in her first year as a Lady Bulldog.
“Quillin is kind of the cog for us; she gets things going,” Anderson said, evoking a comparison with a Major League Baseball leadoff hitter. “If she can get on with Tori and Myleah and Kennedy (Chatman) right behind her, I feel like she sets the table for us. She’s (Ronald) Acuña for us.
“Once you hit 20 homers in a year and you hit close to .600, people start knowing who you are,” he said regarding Hardy. “They pitch you differently. It’s not like she’s not hitting the ball well. She’s producing. I’d pitch her differently. I’d walk her too.”
Heading to Murfreesboro, the idea of finishing what they started – or, arrived in the midst of – is at the forefront of the seniors’ thoughts, and their coach’s as well.
“It definitely holds a lot more weight, with it being the last time I do get to play at this level of competition,” Slaughter said. “I feel like the expectations are a lot higher and I have a lot more motivation and more emotions.”
“They have the expectation, for sure,” Anderson said. “Anything less than winning it in the end would be a letdown.”
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