Not even close

The final run tally for the District 7 Little League all-star softball tournament is not a typo: Madison County 63, Opponents 1.

Madison County steamrolled its way to another district banner, beating its foes by an average of 15.5 runs a game.

Manager Jay Pridgen said that stat about says it all.

“There’s no sense in picking out any one girl or five girls to talk about because every girl on the team hit,” Pridgen said. “Every girl on the team did everything I asked of them.”

Madison County starts its pursuit of a state title July 19 in Warner Robins, taking plenty of ammunition with it to the state tournament.

The entire roster is batting at least .500. Some girls are hitting .750 or .800.

“They have just been crushing the ball,” Pridgen said.

The mound work isn’t shabby either.

The team’s ERA is 0.00, since the lone score allowed at district was the product of an error.

“You can’t beat that,” Pridgen said.

Games at district only went four innings due to mercy-rule requirements. Madison County beat Hart County 22-0, Franklin County 12-0, Rabun County 15-0 and Habersham 14-1.

Madison County gave up its only run late in its Thursday plastering of Habersham County in the championship contest.

Pridgen certainly wasn’t complaining about the run, but would have liked for his team to have posted a tournament shutout.

“That was my goal; that’s what I told them … I would have liked to have had a zero up there,” Pridgen said.

Now attention turns toward state.

This year’s Madison County Little League softball all-star roster features seven players from last year’s team that fell one game short of a state championship.

Pridgen said this group is twice as good as last year’s state runners-up, noting another year of experience.

And it’s safe to say that the bar is set high heading into state.

“They went in there and almost took it at 11 years old; they’d better take it at 12 years old,” Pridgen said.

Madison County receives a first-round bye at state, facing the winner of District 6 and District 8 in the second round.

This year’s state tournament is double elimination, bracket format, a welcomed change for Madison County players and coaches.

Last year’s state tournament started with pool play followed by a single-elimination semifinal, a system that played out unfairly from Madison County’s vantage point.

Madison County went unbeaten in pool play to advance to the semifinals, where it also won. However, Madison County was beaten in the championship by a team, Pioneer (Columbus), it had already downed in pool play.

So both teams lost just one game at state, but Pioneer took the championship.

This year’s double elimination bracket prohibits that scenario from happening again.

“If something like that happens, we’ll have an ‘if game’ which will help out a lot,” Pridgen said.

Pridgen said he’s “very confident” in his team’s ability to atone for last year’s miss. While he doesn’t want to be boastful, Pridgen loves his team’s chances in a double elimination tournament.

“I honestly don’t think there’s a team that’s going to be at this tournament that can beat us twice,” he said.