Huskies persevere, bring home state title
MONTGOMERY — Taylor Burt looked her team in the eye and uttered a phrase that had been heard innumerable times over the previous two weeks.
“One more.”
The Hewitt-Trussville High School softball team lived by that sentence in the postseason. The Huskies found themselves with their backs against the wall, on the brink of elimination, every step of the way — in the area tournament, in the regional tournament and again in the state tournament.
Except, this time, the players saw the light at the end of the tunnel. After notching a win over Auburn on Saturday morning in the Class 7A state tournament, the Huskies’ fourth victory in the last 24 hours, the ultimate prize was within reach.
They were two wins away from a state championship.
When Burt — the second-year head coach — said the two words that had defined her team’s survivalist mentality, the players broke out in a laugh and added to it.
“One more…at a time.”
On that day at Lagoon Park in Montgomery, Hewitt-Trussville won all three games it played, including back-to-back wins over Sparkman (7-4 and 8-4) to claim the state title, the first in program history.
Hewitt-Trussville lost the first game of the tournament to Fairhope before notching six wins in a two-day period to climb all the way out of the losers bracket and put its hands on the blue map.
“It feels incredible,” said Burt, nearly at a loss for words following the Huskies’ logic-defying run. “It’s so surreal. I can’t even begin to explain. These kids, they’re incredible.”
On the ropes
After losing to Spain Park in the 7A, Area 6 tournament on May 1, the Huskies had to beat Vestavia Hills the following day to advance.
After losing to Thompson in the first game of the West Central Regional on May 9, the Huskies had to beat Oak Mountain and Thompson in consecutive games a few days later to advance.
After losing to Fairhope in the first game of the state tournament on May 16, the Huskies had to beat Central-Phenix City, Spain Park, Baker, Auburn and Sparkman (twice) over a 48-hour period to win it all.
Somehow, they did all of that.
“A lot of perseverance,” Burt said. “Just the next one. It’s always just the next one. One more. They’re just fighters. That’s all you can say about them. They never gave up. They never backed down. I’m not sure many people believed in us, but we believed in ourselves and that’s all that mattered.”
There were plenty of moments that stood out along the way. Hewitt-Trussville’s 7-3 win over Central-Phenix City on Friday morning was big in the sense that it was the Huskies’ first state tournament win in over 20 years. The program had advanced to the state tournament previously in 2015 and 2018 but was eliminated in two games each time.
The 12-9 win over Spain Park was monumental. The area foes had met five times previously during the season, with the Jags emerging victorious each time. Spain Park won 18-2 on March 13, a result that fueled the Huskies much of the season.
“That was huge, because they beat us five times and this was the one that mattered,” said senior catcher Hannah Borden.
The gutsy pitching performances of KK Hughes and Hayden Neugent carried Hewitt-Trussville throughout the tournament as well.
But it’s the 12-11 victory over Baker that will likely stand out in the memory bank of those who witnessed Hewitt-Trussville’s run. Not only were the Huskies down to their last game, but they were down to their final out late Friday night.
With two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning, with Hewitt-Trussville trailing 11-9, Maddie Katona reached base with a bunt single. Then Abigail Dorsett was ruled safe at first when the first baseman was deemed off the bag.
That set the stage for Borden, one of the most lethal hitters in the state. She was intentionally walked over 40 times throughout the season, prompting Burt to move her to the leadoff spot in the lineup one game earlier.
“At least get her one at-bat a game,” Burt said of her rationale.
Borden pulled the first two pitches of the at-bat foul, putting the Huskies down to their final strike. Borden was unfazed.
“I was thinking out, out, out, because I didn’t think they would throw me an inside pitch after I hit two hard balls inside,” she said.
She guessed right, and she capitalized. Borden smacked a low-and-away pitch over the right field fence for a three-run, game-winning home run, sending the Huskies into a frenzy and allowing their season to continue for another day.
“I just went with it and it just — it happened,” Borden said.
Hughes was unable to save the game in the circle the previous inning, as Baker took the lead. But Borden made it all moot.
“As a pitcher, thank God for hitters like Hannah,” she said. “She did what she had to do. She saved us big time.”
What did that one swing mean?
“Everything,” Burt said. “We’re on the ropes and we’re done. If it weren’t for that, we’re not standing here. We talk about big-time players in big-time situations and man, we’ve got some big-time players.”
A star is born
Borden’s walk-off homer set the stage for a memorable Saturday, but it was another all-tournament player’s heroics that made much of that run possible.
Eighth-grader Kenleigh Cahalan established herself as the Huskies’ primary third baseman early on in the season, and the left-handed slugger made the most of her first varsity postseason experience.
Cahalan produced one clutch hit after another throughout the state tournament, as she racked up 15 runs batted in over those six wins. Against Baker, Cahalan’s grand slam tied the game at 6-6 in the fourth inning. Her two-run double two innings later knotted it at 8-8. She hit the go-ahead double in the seventh inning against Auburn the following day.
In the first game against Sparkman, Cahalan broke a scoreless tie with a three-run double. She had a pair of RBI hits in the second game, the second of which gave the Huskies the lead for good.
“I really haven’t,” said Cahalan, when asked if she had ever put together a stretch like that before. “I don’t know what happened. Everybody on the team gave me energy and pumped me up.”
Cahalan is a perfect example of what Burt preached throughout the season. The goal was for the Huskies to “peak at the right time” and play their best ball in the season’s home stretch.
Cahalan and Borden both made the all-tournament team, and Crystal Maze was named the tournament’s most valuable player. Maze hit for a .500 average at the state tournament, slugging a home run and driving in eight runs. Borden, Anyce Harvey and Kailey Walters each totaled six RBIs for the tournament.
“Man, did we peak,” Burt said. “Oh my gosh, did we peak. I’m just so proud. That’s the only word I can think of. I’m proud of them. They’ve worked so hard. They deserve it.”
Even in Hewitt-Trussville’s tournament-opening 2-0 loss to defending champ Fairhope, there were positives. The Huskies notched 11 hits and left the bases loaded in three of the seven innings.
“We’ve known the whole season that we’re the best team around, it just hadn’t clicked for us yet,” said Borden, who finished her senior season with a team-high 17 homers and 58 RBIs. “We knew we were going to peak eventually, and it just happened at the right time.”
‘We did it for her’
Hewitt-Trussville’s season could have been over when Molly Cobb, one of the team’s top hitters and pitchers, went down with an injury in late April. Cobb injured her arm during the Hoover Classic on the final weekend of the regular season.
Cobb was a force in the batter’s box and the pitching circle. She hit for a .539 average with 10 home runs and 47 RBIs, while posting a 14-1 pitching record with a 2.04 earned run average.
But hitters like Cahalan and Maze stepped up, and Hughes knew it was her turn to provide big innings the rest of the way.
“I’ve always been the one who’s kind of been — I don’t want to say in the background — but I’m not used to pitching as much as Hayden and Molly usually are,” Hughes said. “But when Molly got hurt, I thought, ‘It’s you and Hayden. You have to get the job done.’”
Hughes and Neugent were each credited with three wins in the state tournament, as they fed off each other and provided the Huskies with more than enough stability in the circle.
“We came in the underdogs,” Neugent said. “No one expected us to do anything. We just went in with the mindset of what do we have to lose and why not us? We just refused to lose.”
Hughes received the bulk of the innings during the state tournament, but Neugent came up with 6 1/3 critical innings in the first Sparkman game. She allowed just three hits and four runs in the outing to earn the win.
“I’ve been struggling most of the season, so I just knew I had to turn it on, figure it out, whatever was going to work,” Neugent said.
Cobb, a senior, was forced to use her leadership skills in other areas besides her play on the field. She took up a spot next to Burt in the dugout while the Huskies were in the field, and was at the top step of the dugout cheering on the team’s offense each inning.
When asked about Cobb’s meaning to the team, Burt and Borden each encountered a wave of emotions.
“If it would’ve been up to her, she’d have cut the thing off (her cast) and played all week,” Burt said. “I think a lot of the reason we were successful is because they knew how bad she wanted to be out there.”
“I think she was one of the big factors as to why we were motivated to win,” Borden said. “We all love her. She’s my best friend, and we did it for her.”
Coming home with a blue map
After the postgame celebration and ensuing parade of pictures, the state championship trophy was buckled into the passenger seat of Burt’s car and made the hour and a half trek north to Trussville.
Community members, program supporters and family members gathered at the Hewitt-Trussville softball field to welcome the team home. An impromptu party was thrown, ending the season in mid-May on the same diamond where it began in January, during the throwing and conditioning period.
And that’s not to mention the offseason, preseason and in-season workouts that led up to the games.
It all paid off over those final two weeks, and particularly the season’s final day.
“It’s pretty freakin’ sweet,” Burt said.
This spring is not likely to be the last time the Hewitt-Trussville program makes waves. The starting infield during the state tournament of Riley Tyree, Hannah Dorsett, Harvey and Cahalan will all be back for at least two more years. Center fielder Abigail Dorsett is just a junior, along with Hughes.
For the five seniors, their run with the Hewitt-Trussville softball program could not have ended any better. Borden now heads to play at Southern Miss after her illustrious career. Cobb will play at Auburn University at Montgomery after being a do-it-all standout at Hewitt.
Walters, whose last high school at-bat was a three-run double that gave the Huskies ample cushion in the final win, will play college ball at Samford. Right fielder Maddie Katona, a Dartmouth signee, hit for a .395 average and scored 50 runs on the season.
Neugent likely could have played in college had she chosen that route. But she dropped the proverbial microphone on her softball career in a way few get to.
“We did that thing,” she said.