It’s been a season of highs and lows for the Goshen High School Eagles softball team, a season that’s about to present its biggest challenge yet to the young team.

After a slow start in 2012 that turned into a 14-game winning streak and a tournament win, the Eagles have secured the number one seed in the area and will be hosting the area tournament on May 1.

“We’re going in as the number one seed,” Eagles head coach Dee Hughes said. “This season we’ve gotten wins over Highland Home and Central-Hayneville and we started off slow. We lost three seniors coming into this year and we’ve got a young outfield and we lost some games to some good teams. We’ve been hanging in and about midway through the season we just took off I’ve been really proud of the girls they’ve stepped up.”

The Eagles success in the later parts of the season included a first place win at the Greenville Parks and Recreation Varsity Softball Tournament, an eight-team competition that the Eagles swept.

“We won the Greenville tourney earlier this year and it was a big turning point for us,” Hughes said. “We gained a lot of confidence and after that we were able to win some big games.”

The Eagles will bring in a younger squad to the area tournament, led by two seniors in Allison Warick at pitcher and Rachael Senn at catcher.

The Eagles have ninth graders on third and second base, with seventh and eight graders in the outfield rounding out a team that has grown up quickly this season.

The tournament will begin with a matchup between Highland Home and Central-Hayneville at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, with the Eagles playing the winner immediately after.

The two losing teams will then meet later on at 8 p.m. with the championship matchup taking place on Thursday.

The two teams who advance to the final game will then receive automatic bids to the state playoffs.