The young Charlotte County Debs all-star team produced a valiant performance in its first game of the 2019 Dixie Softball Debs State Tournament on Friday despite the loss, and the girls fell short Saturday against the Amherst all-star team, but they showed the future could be bright for softball in the county.

Charlotte Debs Manager William Collins shared his thoughts on his all-stars’ performance after they fell 19-14 to the Dinwiddie all-star team Friday afternoon in sweltering conditions at Concord Elementary School.
“They gave it everything they had,” he said. “I was very proud of them. That’s one of the hardest games they’ve played all year. If you look at the uniforms, look how hard.”

Much of the girls’ uniforms had turned the reddish color of the dirt that made up the infield.
“We had kids that got hit and hurt on the field, and they came back and played,” Collins continued. “They gave everything they had.”

In that game, Charlotted featured LeeAnn Nichols, Hallie Watson and Megan Davis in the circle.
Collins said that everybody on his team did well on offense. Dinwiddie was just able to do more in one inning.
“They had one really good inning,” he said. “We just couldn’t catch up on the difference. They had one big inning where they scored, I think, nine runs, and that was the difference in the ballgame.”

He noted thinking the heat took a toll on both teams in a game that started at 1 p.m.

On Saturday, Charlotte played Amherst in the morning and lost 12-7 after taking an early lead.
“They played hard in the second one,” Collins said of his players. “It seemed like it was always one inning. There was one inning that got us in the first game, and in the second game, we were up, I believe the score was 5-1 or 6-1, and it was either the third or the fourth inning, they had the bases loaded.”

A pair of errors led to three runs scoring.

“And then they got a couple of other base hits in that inning and scored a few more runs,” Collins said. “And then we’re just trying to play catch up with them from that point on. We couldn’t catch them.”

Despite the 0-2 state run for his team, Collins was pleased.

“The Debs division is made up usually of girls that are 16- to 19-years-old,” he said. “The team we had (included) a lot of 14- and 15-year-olds on it. … We only had one 19-year-old on our team. We were a relatively young team, so if we stick with it and keep on and keep on and develop our pitching and stuff, I think down the road we can do pretty well. I was proud of them.”

The girls played 24 games this year, including the regular season.