Sparkman barrels through Area 16 Tournament, Bob Jones takes second in Area 15
Harvest- Sparkman began their relentless onslaught of a state softball championship with three dominating wins to claim the Class 6A, Area 16 title in the area tournament held at Sparkman High School. The Senators first opponent to go down was Huntsville by an 11-4 margin Thursday night in a game played despite wet and foggy conditions. Next up for the top-ranked softball team in 6A was Buckhorn in a game carried over to Friday morning. The Bucks played tough but went down 10-2 after a late inning homerun barrage by Sparkman. Ashley Price, Jana Korak, and Meg Willis all went deep.
Hazel Green claimed second in the tournament with a win over Buckhorn then fell to Sparkman 11-4 in a game that featured mostly freshmen playing for the Trojans because the senior and junior players left early to get ready for the Prom.
The top two finishers advance to the AHSAA North Regional, a grueling two days of softball next weekend at the Huntsville Kiwanis Sportsplex.
Sparkman now has a 53-6 record this season that includes a 35-game winning streak that was snapped last weekend at the Hoover Tournament by Oak Mountain.
Sparkman coach Dale Palmer said the loss can be beneficial to motivate his team even more.
“It is good to lose when you have come to the point where you feel like if you just show up you will win,” Palmer said. “You need to feel like anybody can beat you so you have your best game. I felt like we played hard but in the back of our mind we thought we are going to win because we always pull it out. So I felt it was good for us at that time.”
Motivation should not be a problem for this team. Sparkman has advanced to the AHSAA Softball Championship Tournament in Montgomery the last 3 years but has not won a state championship since 2008 when the current seniors were freshmen.
The team is led by a trio of power hitters, all of whom have hit over 10 home runs. Jordan Bullock is the teams leading hitter at close to .400. Janna Korak is a junior who is being heavily recruited by SEC schools. Korak slammed 2 homeruns in the area tournament in games against Hazel Green and Buckhorn. Ashley Price hits cleanup and leads the team in home runs and RBI’s.
Leadoff hitter Bevia Robinson is second on the team in batting average.
Korak is also one of the team’s top pitchers along with Meg Willis and Sam Mayhall.
Palmer says that all the pitchers are “hitting their stride” which is bad news for opposing teams.
“Janna throws the hardest of our pitchers and has a down and away movement that gets a lot of ground balls. She has got a really good change of speed too. Every one of the pitchers does something unique from the others so depending on who we are facing any of the three can be our number one. Sam throws the ball in real well,” Palmer said.
“As long as we play to our potential that is all I’m interested in,” Palmer said. “You can’t control who you play against. But you can control that you swing at good pitches, that you field routine ground balls, and you make good throws. Pitching-wise, we need to keep the ball down in the zone and change speeds. As long as we do that I feel reasonably confident we can beat anybody we play,” Palmer said.
“We’re not worried about which teams we may play, we are just worried about playing our best. Because if we play our best and they play their best we are going to win,” Palmer said.
One of the teams Sparkman is likely to see in the regional is Bob Jones. The third ranked Patriots hosted the Area 15 Tournament on Friday after the rain washed out all the games scheduled for Thursday.
The day started well for the Lady Patriots who opened with an 11-0 win over Decatur. Allie Stocking went 2 for 3 and Angela Jolifee picked up the win. Austin upset the Patriots 2-1 in extra innings in a winner’s bracket game but Bob Jones rebounded with an 8-0 win over Florence in an elimination game.
Later, Austin defeated Bob Jones again to wrap up the Area 15 title. Both teams advance to the North Regional next week.
