Sports Editor

I’ve said it before and I’m sure that I will say it plenty more times in my lifetime, but watching a team’s season come to an end is always a tough thing to cover as a sports editor.

That job is especially hard when you are covering a group of players as talented and as dedicated to their sport as the Lady Trojans of Charles Henderson High School.

It’s been three years now that the fast-pitch format has been implemented at CHHS and in those three seasons it is incredible the amount of success that the Lady Trojans have enjoyed.

Two years in a row now, the team has made it to the elite field of eight at the Class 5A State Championship in Montgomery. While they have only been able to notch one victory in those two appearances, simply to be named along side the top teams in the state is an honor.

Next year the team will have to overcome the adversity of graduating six seniors that grace the team’s starting lineup. That will be a hard proposition, but the seeds have been planted here in Troy thanks to the hard work of this team.

Throughout the Rec Leagues the seeds are beginning to grow as Troy Park and Rec has gone to the fast-pitch format, something many other towns and communities should take note of and follow.

Slow-pitch softball has seen it’s day and fast-pitch is now the future of the sport. With Troy’s and Charles Henderson’s thrust into the fast-pitch style of play they are already seeing the benefits of the move.

In only three years CHHS has seen six of its players sign college scholarships to play on the next level. Five of this-years’ senior class will move on to play at the collegiate level.

There is no future in slow-pitch softball unless you count playing for a church league or adult recreation league in which THEY must pay to play.

The future is in the exciting style of play that fast-pitch allows its players to compete in. The stagnant nature of slow-pitch softball is now, and always will be, simply an excuse for high school females to participate in an outdoor recreation. Fast-pitch is chance for them to compete and move into the future of the sport.

That is exactly what the Charles Henderson girls have done. They have raised the bar at the high school while taking advantages of their own personal opportunities and will receive a college education as a reward.

They have shown the community what hard work and determination can accomplish. And as the younger generation of girls look up to them and try to emulate them in the Rec Leagues around town, it is almost assured CHHS has not seen its last trip to the State Championship Tournament.