Kell advance to Columbus in GHSA 4A softball state championship tournament

For the second consecutive season, the Kell Longhorns softball team will make a trip to Columbus for the Georgia High School Association softball state championship tournament following their series sweep of the Pace Academy Knights on Tuesday which began with a 7-1 Game 1 win of the double header as Kell sophomore pitcher would strike out 12 batters through seven innings pitched.

In Game 2, the Longhorns would jump out to 4-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning thanks to a grand slam by junior and Virginia Tech commit, Anna Bardeen, who finished the game with five runs batted in on three hits. And while the Knights would run off three runs in the top of the fourth inning to make it a 4-3 lead for Kell, the Longhorns would tack on eight more runs, three in the bottom of the fifth and five in the bottom of the sixth, in route to an 13-5 win.

"I just saw a lot of fight," Kell head coach, Kevin Foster, said of his team's performance in Tuesday's games against a Pace Academy team Foster said the Longhorn anticipated playing them tough. "The have really good pitchers, really good coaches, but our girls took what they wanted," Foster added, explaining the Longhorns enter the day with a game plan and "executed" it.

And while Foster was overall proud of how well his team played on Tuesday night, he noted improvement on base running will be an important factor in order for the Longhorn to find success in Columbus. "We had a little bit of trouble with some base running, luckily we were able to cover it up with some big timely hits," Foster said of one of the points of focus as they prepare for the championship bracket.