O.B. welcomes home its Amazing Makos!
O.B. welcomes home its Amazing Makos!
Another season, another AHSAA state championship for the Orange Beach High School varsity softball team.
The Makos (46-1) scored a run in the first inning and another in the third, and pitcher KG Favors threw a four-hitter to lead the locals to a 2-1 victory over Brooks in the May 14 Class 4A championship game at Choccolocco Park in Oxford.
Orange Beach stormed through its opponents, winning four straight games in the double elimination tourney by a combined score of 25-12.
Orange Beach, ranked in the top five nationally by MaxPreps, won the Class 2A championship in 2021, the school’s very first year, and repeated in 2022. They have since won back-to-back 4A titles while accumulating a 136-23 record during the four title run. The Makos ended their run as Alabama’s top ranked team in the ITG Next – Alabama rankings (Daphne was ranked no. 3 and Gulf Shores no. 19).The top softball teams in the Coastal Region are ranked regardless of class in the Press-Register Power 5 and Orange Beach was ranked first.
The Dolphins wore orange pinstripe jerseys to easily earn the Mullet Wrapper’s best tourney uniforms award.
Championship: Orange Beach 2, Brooks 1
Ava Hodo and Teagan Revette drove in runs, and lead-off hitter Katie King and Revette scored runs in the final. King was stepping in for O.B.’s star shortstop and Auburn commitment Daigle Wilson, who was injured in Monday’s winners bracket final when she was struck in the face by a hard hit ground ball that took a bad hop. Wilson is recovering from a broken nose and a concussion.
The Makos took their 1-0 first inning lead on an RBI double from Revette. Hodo scored the would-be winning run on a third-inning single to bring Revette home.
Hodo, still only a sophomore, has played on all four Orange Beach championship teams. The team’s catcher also made the defensive play of the game at the plate during what started out as a rundown between first and second, after Brooks pitcher Abby Herndon led off the seventh with a triple.
“We worked on that a ton and it was good to see it pay off in that situation,’’ Makos coach Shane Alexander said. “We’ve worked it both sides and all year we never had to use it until that moment.”
Favors was named tournament MVP after pitching a combined 25 innings in four games. She allowed only six runs and 15 hits while notching 23 strikeouts. She was also 4-12 at the plate with a two-run home run and six RBIs. Al.com ranked her performance the third best in the entire championship tourney.
Tourney Opener: Orange Beach 10, Curry 2
The top seed, Orange Beach scored nine runs over the final two innings to break open a close game and beat Curry 10-2 in the tourney opener. The Makos led 1-0 heading into the bottom of the fifth before sending eight batters to the plate to secure the win. A Curry error resulted in two runs before a two-run homer by Favors upped the lead to 5-0. Favors struck out eight, and was 2-for-4 with four RBIs from the batter’s box. Taylor Poland also drove in a run and collected two hits.
Winner’s Bracket #1: Makos 7, Cherokee 6
Hodo’s solo home run to lead off the bottom of the eighth inning gave top-ranked Orange Beach the walk-off victory in the winner’s second round and moved the Makos into the winners’ bracket final. The teams traded leads throughout. Cherokee County led 2-0 after the first inning. Orange Beach scored once in the second inning and three times in the fourth to grab a 4-2 lead. The Warriors answered with four runs in the bottom of the fourth to claim a 6-4 advantage.
