By Wade Marbaugh

 

The final Georgia Perimeter College softball campaign opened in February with a challenging combination—a freshman-laden team on the road for three prominent tournaments in Florida and Alabama against national-quality opposition.

 

Yet the very young Jaguars came out of that gauntlet with an impressive 8-5 record, including wins over perennial powers Chipola College (Fla.), Blinn College (Texas), Northwest Florida State College and Tallahassee Community College, ranked ninth in the National Junior College Athletic Association preseason poll.

 

But nobody expected GPC—who finished sixth in the conference regular season—to win, for the fourth time in the past nine years, a trip to the National Junior College Athletic Association national championship tournament.

 

The sixth-seeded Jaguars swept through the Georgia Collegiate Athletic Association double-elimination tournament with three victories and punctuated their dominance with an 18-4 victory over top-seeded Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College on April 26 at Strong Rock Academy in Locust Grove.

 

Next stop for the Jaguars (25-19) was St. George, Utah, for the NJCAA national tournament in mid-May.

 

In their final game of the GCAA tournament, La’Brisha Washington pitched her third tournament victory, and the Jaguars belted four home runs to win the conference championship.

 

Third baseman Chase Battle led the hit parade with four hits—a three-run home run blast to centerfield, two doubles and a single. She finished the tournament with 10 runs batted in. Khayreah Parrish and Ashtin Burtin hit back-to-back homers, and Sam Leach added another.

 

ABAC was the only team to score off Washington (17-12), who earned wins against the league’s three top-seeded teams. She beat third-seeded Georgia Military College 6-0 and No. 2 Georgia Highlands College 2-0. Washington and the team had an eight-game winning streak going into nationals.

 

“We just gave the ball to La’Brisha,” said head coach ken Deyton. “She had gotten driven and determined, and we just gave the ball to her. She matured over the season and pitched us into nationals.”

 

GPC captured the conference tournament championship in 2007, 2010 and 2013 and won the regular-season title in 2002, 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2013. The 2013 championships came in Ken Deyton’s first year as head coach.

 

Only one sophomore remains on the roster from the 2014 season, catcher Morgan Howard. Nevertheless, onlookers seem to agree this is the best hitting team GPC has fielded in at least a decade—and the swiftest on the bases.

 

Going into the conference tournament, Carolyn Edwards led the Jaguars at the plate with a .360 batting average and 32 RBIs. She and Battle each had four home runs. Parrish led the team with 19 stolen bases, second in the GCAA. Among pitchers, Washington’s 113 strikeouts was second in the conference.

 

To even get into the tournament, GPC had to sweep doubleheaders at Georgia Military and Darton State College in the last week of GCAA play. Washington pitched all of those games—pitched and won them.

 

“The character and heart of this team is second to none,” Deyton said. “That’s what did it for them—they’re hard workers and very coachable.”

 

Deyton was assisted by an all-new staff–Kathleen Vogler, Freddie Glass and former first-team all-conference shortstop Kacie Patterson, who now leaves GPC to play professional softball in Germany.

 

More on Jaguar sports, including game stories going back to 2007.