Rebels peak at end, make it to state
The Vestavia Hills High School softball team defied the odds this season and advanced to the Class 7A state tournament for the first time since 2016.
The Rebels battled through arguably the state’s toughest area and regional to make it to state, a feat not diminished by them falling in both games they played at the state tournament, held May 20-21 at Choccolocco Park in Oxford.
“We played okay, definitely not as well as we wanted to or expected to, but being here for the first time for a lot of our girls, I knew we’d be fighting the nerve bug,” head coach Lissa Walker said.
Walker believes the team peaked toward the end of the season, a product of camaraderie and figuring out how to win close games.
“Throughout the year, we lost a lot of big games,” she said. “Not that we played bad, we just couldn’t get what we needed at the right time.”
Walker began to see the signs of a breakthrough coming late in the season. Then, once the Rebels got to the Area 6 tournament, they made Hewitt-Trussville sweat in the opening round. Vestavia Hills fell to the eventual state champion just 2-1.
“That jumpstarted us,” Walker said. “We were in that game the whole time. That got us going in the right direction.”
That game set the stage for a decisive victory over Spain Park the following day. In a do-or-die game, Vestavia Hills shut out the Jaguars 3-0, clinching a spot at the regional tournament. In that game, the Rebels scored two in the first and that was all freshman pitcher Tait Davidson needed. She walked nine in the contest, but allowed just one hit and struck out 13 batters in a complete-game effort.
Vestavia Hills took that momentum to the regional tournament the following week. The Rebels were up against Hewitt-Trussville, Auburn and Central-Phenix City. They took another opening loss, falling to Auburn 3-1 in the first game of the tournament.
Vestavia Hills rebounded from that and stayed alive with an 8-3 win over Central-Phenix City.
Charity Bibbs saved her best performance for the last game of the day, as she threw a one-hit shutout to lead the Rebels to a 2-0 victory over Auburn to lift Vestavia to its first state tournament appearance since 2016.
Bibbs also homered in the game, while Sydney Harris drove in the other Vestavia run. There were big defensive plays in the contest as well, as Ella Gallaspy and Harris each caught deep fly balls that had the potential to be home runs.
Walker said it was “pretty cool” to watch the team gain belief throughout the postseason run.
“All of our fans, just the difference in the dugout, the appearance of the girls and how they jelled and all that. It’s amazing to watch a group of girls that you see and you know they have the potential, but they haven’t been living up to it and, all the sudden, it’s like a light bulb went off and they’re rolling with it,” she said.
At state, the Rebels fell to eventual runner-up Fairhope 9-0 and to Thompson 11-6, but Walker said that will not define what this team did to get there. Walker has coached for many years, but this team gave her a new perspective in some ways.
“They’re just a fun group,” she said. “They taught me how it’s okay to let them dance before games and how it’s okay to be themselves, even in the rough times.”
This season served as a great way to finish the Rebels careers of Bibbs, Gwynnie Hornibrook, Annie Kate Parks, Lily Dunaway and Harris.