The young Pike County Lady Bulldogs entered the 2016 softball season with a lot of questions about their team. With a busy month of April upcoming, head coach Fawn Sims is ready to get some answers.

With March now in the rear view mirror, many teams have played nearly twenty games. Due to many rainouts and cancellation’s, the Bulldogs game count sits at nine, leaving them hungry for experience and success.

“We are going through some growing pains, experience wise,” Sims said. “Our theme for the year was gain experience. We are making adjustments.”

After the nine games, the Bulldogs find themselves with a 5-4 record. And like most young team their success hinges on their defense.

“The thing that I have noticed about our team this year is that when we are solid defensively ,we actually hit like crazy,” Sims said. “So we are really thriving with how we are playing defense right now.”

Even after winning five of the nine games to start the season, the Bulldogs need to play. With each game comes the chance of gaining quality experience before the start of the playoffs.

“That is hurting us right now,” Sims said. “Instead of having short memories after a loss where we normally come right back the next day, we are sitting on it. We played last Tuesday and we have had to sit on that loss to Dale County for a week and a half.”

During the time between games Sims and assistant coach Shea Driggers have had to invent ways to keep their team invested, focused and hungry for their next game and not dwell on the negatives. Things like bringing in motivational speakers and watching tape on Auburn softball have been a regular occurrence during Bulldogs practices.

“We have done a lot of mental training,” Sims said. “It drags out. I get bored at practice too, so I have to adjust what I have done. Me and Coach Driggers sat down and made adjustments on how to do our practice plan and it has gone really well so far.”

All season long the Bulldogs motto has been continue the process of getting better. In the small sample size the Bulldogs have found themselves improving.

“We have progressed in some ways,” Sims said. “My rookies are learning a lot. We are getting in experiences that when we are losing, we are not making the same mistakes twice.”

On the offensive side, the Bulldogs are starting to excel in the way of slap hitting the ball. The Bulldogs leaders in on base percentage, Precious Vaznaian and Mercedes Harvis, have excelled in slap hitting early on this season.

As the season turns to April, the hope is that the Bulldogs will be busy. That starts this weekend when they compete in a five-team round robin in Valley. The round robin will give the Bulldogs the opportunity to go up against teams they have not seen before, but more importantly will give them more of a look at themselves.

“We need to play,” Sims said. “That way we can really identify what are strengths and weakness’s are in game like situations.”

The Bulldogs will play a total of four games on Saturday beginning at 10 a.m. against such as Valley, Dadeville, Alabama Christian Academy and Benjamin Russell.

With the busy schedule coming up, coach Sims has a realistic goal for her team as the regular season comes to a close.

“Realistically I would like to see us at .500,” Sims said. “From what I have been told the win record at Pike County is eight wins and we did that last year. We are capable of winning more games. It’s a matter of making it happen.”