Historic Huskies: Helena beats Saraland for first state softball championship
Published 6:19 pm Friday, May 16, 2025
Helena capped off years of promise to win its first softball state championship, defeating Saraland to cap off a tournament where coach Mark Sanders said his team simply wanted it more. (For the Reporter/Dawn Harrison)
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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor
OXFORD – As Lily Sanderson caught the final fly ball in the top of the seventh inning against the Saraland Spartans, the Helena Huskies experienced a new emotion.
Not the disappointment from five-straight seasons that ended with losses in the state tournament. Not the lows from going winless at Oxford in both 2023 and 2024.
For the first time ever, the Huskies experienced the elation of a state softball championship.
Helena capped off an undefeated 4-0 run through the Class 6A state tournament with a 5-3 win over Saraland on Friday, May 16 at Choccolocco Park’s Signature Field, claiming both the first championship in program history and the first in coach Mark Sanders’ 25-year career.
“It means everything,” Sanders said. “They’ve worked so hard. I had them when they were seventh and eighth graders, and they had wonderful seasons then. And I knew their heart. I knew their leadership abilities.”
Helena won the historic title with the help of some crucial two-out offense early in the game and big plays from the fielders around pitcher Carrington Schiefer.
The junior won the MVP after allowing just two runs off eight hits and not walking any batters in her complete-game win, but she needed all the help she could get from her defense as all 21 outs were recorded by the other eight Huskies in the field.
“Work my butt off, the outfield and infield’s got me, and I’ve got it,” Schiefer said of her mentality.
Schiefer provided her own support in the bottom of the first with a two-out single, giving Hayden Traywick a base runner to work with. Traywick deposited a ball perfectly on the third-base foul line to get to second, but an errant throw home allowed the courtesy runner Claire Gourtney to score the opening run.
After Schiefer worked around another two-out single in the second, Helena got its offense going with a one-out knock from Baleigh Sprouse and a two-out walk from Henley Traywick.
That gave Macie Brashears two on with two outs, and she got a grounder through to center to single and score Sprouse for the 2-0 lead.
Saraland’s defense cost it in a big way in the bottom of the third. First, Schiefer singled off a mishandled low ball by the shortstop. She went over to second off a bunt by Hayden Traywick, putting her on second for Destiny Brashears.
Brashears bounced a ball off the second baseman to cause an error, sending Schiefer home to beat out the throw and increase the lead to 3-0.
A one-two-three top of the fourth set up a big bottom of the fourth from Helena. After a pitching change for the Spartans, Henley Traywick singled to start the inning and Macie Brashears was hit by a pitch to put two on with no outs.
Two batters later, Schiefer struck again, scoring Macie Brashears off a single to center for the fourth run. Both runners then advanced on a passed ball before a Hayden Traywick ground out made it a 5-0 game.
That proved to be the last bit of offense from the Huskies, but they held strong on defense to secure the win.
After a scoreless fifth, Saraland hit back-to-back singles in the top of the sixth, the latter of which scored its first run of the game to cut the deficit to 5-1.
However, that was all the Spartans would get in the inning as Sprouse caught a fly out and made the heads-up play to first, getting the runner there out before she could tag up to turn two and end the inning, sending her teammates into a frenzy.
Schiefer forced a pair of pop outs to Storey at second in the top of the seventh to get on the verge of a state title, but the 21st out proved to be the hardest to get. Three-straight singles led to two more runs coming home and Saraland cutting the gap to just two runs.
Sanders came out for a circle visit to settle down Schiefer, and he backed his pitcher to get the final out.
She got it on the next batter by forcing a fly out to Lily Sanderson in left field, finishing off the 5-3 win and kicking off the state championship celebration.
The road to that celebration wasn’t always easy. The Huskies had to navigate a difficult area of Chelsea, Spain Park and Pelham, downing all three of them in the area tournament to reach regionals.
Once in Montgomery, Helena faced adversity in the winners’ bracket final with a loss to Brookwood. That forced the team to play from behind and win an extra game to get to state, but it proved to be their last loss of the season.
Sanders said the switch just came from his team playing its best softball in the final five games of the season.
“After that loss, it was tough,” Sanders said. “Our girls really wanted to be the first qualifier, and that didn’t happen. We were number two, but I kept telling them, ‘All you got to do is reach the next round, and you can get hot.’ And they did. I think we played our best ball of the season by far in these last couple days. And I’m just so proud of them. They’re such a great bunch of kids.”
Sanders shared after the first day of state that he asks his players to love each other unconditionally, have fun on the field and want it more than their opponents. He said they did all three of those things at state, but the last one was especially present.
“They did that, those three things for this entire week,” Sanders said. “And that’s what made the difference. They wanted it more this week.”
For Sanders and the Huskies, it’s the end of a journey, one that started when Sanders was their middle school coach during a historic run, including an undefeated 2022 season when this year’s juniors were eighth graders.
Both he and his players have grown a lot from that time at Helena Middle, but he believes this year had the most growth of any that they have been together.
That’s part of what makes this moment special for him to win with this group.
“We grew a lot this year from the beginning,” Sanders said. “And that’s what I really try to do each year is just help the kids grow, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, physically, and I feel like this was the greatest year of growth that we had. And so, I’m just so honored to be a part of it. I’m just a tiny part of this, but I feel so honored to be a part of it.”
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