COVINGTON, Ga. — It has been a while since an Alcovy softball team entered a season having playoff experience under its belt. Last year, the Lady Tigers entered the playoffs — for the first time in five seasons — but just got a taste of postseason action being first round exits.
Leading the charge for Alcovy in 2022 will be Ashlyn Hoy and Kaitlyn Williams.
Last year’s taste of playoff experience has Williams back and eager for more.
“Last year makes me hungrier,” Williams said. “We want to make sure we can go further and we can do better. We want to move to the second round, because the first round is not good enough for us. We want to keep building and it makes me want it a lot more.”
Williams is a sophomore second baseman this year who had a .391 batting average, .458 on-base percentage, one home run, six RBIs and a .975 fielding percentage as a freshman. Her contributions also earned her First Team All-Region honors, too.
Meanwhile, Hoy enters this season as an upperclassman holding the fort down in centerfield for Alcovy. As a sophomore last season, Hoy recorded a .224 batting average, .377 on-base percentage, three RBIs, six walks and a .912 fielding percentage. She earned Second Team All-Region honors, too.
Both players have been hard at work to help the team achieve its ultimate goal of qualifying and advancing in this year’s postseason.
In fact, entering her junior season has encouraged Hoy to become an even bigger piece to Alcovy’s future success.
“It motivates me to be a better leader on the team,” Hoy said. “We’re trying to build a program here and do better than we did last year and we want to go further. So, I’m just wanting to keep the team up and be a leader on the team.”
Another motivating factor driving Hoy to become an even better player for her team and teammates is last year’s playoff experience. Hoy believes that experience can help propel their Lady Tigers to see their dreams come to fruition.
“Now that we’ve made it there, we see that it is possible,” Hoy said. “And now we need to push ourselves even harder to get there because we know we can do better than last year.”
In addition to making noise in this year’s playoffs, Alcovy has also set the goal to compete for and win the Region 3-AAAAAA championship.
However, throughout this offseason, the Lady Tigers have not focused on the big picture as much as they have the smaller elements of their game.
Though some of the things may seem insignificant, Williams and Hoy realize even the small facets can go a long way in achieving their goals.
“Little things win the ball games,” Williams said. “Hitting a home run is cool, but we want the little things — get the easy outs, make the plays you need to make — when you do the little things right, the big things will fall into place.”
