Makos claim 3rd straight state title

Makos claim 3rd straight state title
OBHS continues to dominate in softball despite having just one senior

Orange Beach welcomed home its Class 4A high school softball state champions on Sunday, May 21 with a rousing celebration at the Performing Arts Center with coaches, fans, parents and city and school officials.
Only one player took a turn at the mike which is apt considering this amazing talented group of players only has one senior on the squad, Georgia McDonald.
“These last three years have been the best of my life and I want to thank my teammates for sharing it with me,” McDonald said. “Y’all are all my sisters and I’m still going to be here to support you.”
Orange Beach defeated Houston Academy 5-0 the afternoon of May 20 to finish the tournament undefeated and win the Class 4A state title.
The number three is significant for two reasons as well. This marks the third straight season the fledging softball program has won a state championship. But there’s a greater significance with the number three.
“A three-peat is a big deal,” Mayor Tony Kennon told the team. “But three in your first three seasons is a really big deal. Nobody’s ever done that.”
Superintendent Randy Wilkes pointed out that Orange Beach is the ninth softball team to win three state championships in a row in Alabama high school play. One team has won four in a row and another won five, Pisgah.
There was a lot of talk during the celebration of the Lady Makos adding that fourth straight championship. With every player but McDonald returning, Orange Beach has the pieces in place for another state run. And, the stars are young.
Sophomore pitcher K.G. Favors was the state tournament MVP after a one-hit performance to beat Houston Academy 5-0 in the title game.
Also, making the all-tournament team were freshman Teagan Revette, eighth-grader L.C. Robbins, soph shortstop Daigle Wilson and freshman catcher Ava Hodo. Hodo is a candidate for freshman softball national player of the year honors.
Head Coach Shane Alexander praised his team’s work ethic and how they strive to constantly improve.
“This team is a coach’s dream,” Alexander said. “I’m just enjoying riding along.”
Some stats are in order. Orange Beach scored 49 runs in four state tournament games and gave up just 9. Two of their wins were shutouts. This season, the team won a record 46 games scoring 499 runs and giving up only 130.
“We’ve got a lot of kids on this team that are going to break state records,” Alexander said.
Alexander said he heard players talking on the way home from the tournament about getting together to work on hitting. This week. Kennon said this is one of the key elements to the great success of the three previous seasons.
“Heart and grit,” Kennon said. “You are the truest form of Mako grit. Thanks for being a great representative of our city.”
Wilson hit a walk-off single to left field in the bottom of the seventh inning to give the Makos a 2-1 victory over Mars Hill and the Alabama Class 2A softball title in 2022. The hit scored Falyn Beebe from third base, earning the Makos a second straight AHSAA Class 2A softball championship.
In the 2021, the school’s first year of scholastic competition, Hodo hit a championship-winning home run in the Class 2A title game.
In three years of competitive softball at the high school level, Orange Beach has ended all three seasons as state champions. And as the city’s mayor said, that has never been accomplished before.
During the school’s first year of scholastic competition, it competed as a Class 2A school and won the title and repeated last year. Houston Academy won the Class 3A state championship last year.
The Makos (46-10-1) scored at least one run in each of the first four innings of the final. After surrendering that first single, Favors allowed only two other base runners, both on walks, the rest of the way while striking out four.
The championship game was moved from Choccolocco Park to Jacksonville State due to weather concerns.
Freshman Teagan Revette singled in the first to bring home Wilson, who finished the game with a single, two walks a hit-by-pitch, two stolen bases and two runs scored in four at bats.
Junior Falyn Beebe and freshman Addy Oldham hit triples to add to the lead in the second inning, and 8th
grader L.C. Robbins added insurance with a solo home run in the third. Hodo drove in the final run with a triple in the fourth.
The Makos also beat Houston Academy in the winner’s bracket final 10-8 at Choccolocco Park, meaning that they would have two chances to win the title, if needed, against whoever came out of the elimination bracket.
The Makos beat White Plains 18-0 and Prattville Christian 16-1 in their first two games to set up the winners’ bracket re-match against Houston Academy, who beat Orange Beach 1-0 in the South Regional finals a week before the state championship tourney.
Teagan Revette had three of Orange Beach’s 11 hits in that game, and Kaitlynn Robertson, Favors and Justine Henderson had two hits each. Revette and Hood hit solo homers in the first.
“The key obviously is to stay in that winner’s bracket,” Alexander said on Sports Talk 99.5 FM in Mobile. “To me, I felt like that Friday night game was the championship game. It was a back-and-forth battle with Houston Academy. We would go up, then they would go up.
“It was a 10-8 ballgame, and I could tell both teams were exhausted physically and mentally. They had to get up and play early the next day. If you go undefeated, you get to sleep in. We tell our girls that because they are all about sleeping in.”