MOULTRIE – Taylor Barber will always be indebted to the five seniors on his first Colquitt County fast-pitch softball team.
Shyanne Harp, RaJayla McBride, Aziah McNeal, Montana Tatum and Libby Wetherington helped smooth his late selection as the Lady Packers head coach last summer.
And they were keys to the team’s 19-12 record, the program’s fourth region championship in six years and Barber earning the Region 1-6A Coach of the Year award in his first season back at his high school alma mater.
At the softball team’s annual banquet on Wednesday at the high school cafeteria, Barber said he wasn’t sure when he took over just how successful the 2024 team could be.
“But they proved everybody wrong,” he said. “These seniors bought into what we wanted to do and then the juniors bought into it and then the sophomores bought into it.
“Winning a region championship here is not an easy thing to do and they did it for the third time in four years. I couldn’t be prouder of this team.”
Barber introduced the seven Lady Packers named to the All-Region 1-6A team: McBride, Kamry Paulk and Rhegan Harrell, who were on the first team and Wetherington, Tatum and Lanie Burley, who were selected for the second team.
Junior Peyton Arrington was named as the Region’s Player of the Year.
The Lady Packers ultimate individual award is joining the 100-Point Club, which honors the team’s most productive and selfless players.
Only 19 players have won the award since it was created in 2013 and their names are memorialized on a plaque in the clubhouse.
Arrington, with 201 points, and McBride, with 140, put their names on that plaque this season.
And the two have received statewide honors as well.
McBride was one of 80 senior players selected for last month’s Georgia Dugout Club’s All-State games and hit a home run and stole a base at Truist Park.
Barber accompanied her on the trip to Atlanta and served as one of the All-State coaches.
And, more recently, McBride and Arrington were named to the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association’s Class 6A All-State second team.
Arrington went 10-4 with a 2.02 ERA in the circle and hit a team-leading .438 for the Lady Packers.
The versatile junior had nine doubles, three triples and drove in a team-leading 31 runs.
McBride, who has committed to play at Alcorn State University in Lorman, Miss., hit .419 as the Lady Packers leadoff hitter this season and was 43-45 in stolen base attempts.
Assistant coach Will Stuckey introduced the Lady Packers top scholars at the banquet.
They were Lanie Burley, Libby Wetherington, Peyton Arrington, Montana Tatum, Rhylee Tillery, Gracie McKellar, Kamry Paulk, Rheygan Harrell and Ashton Manley.
Wetherington ranks No. 5 in Colquitt County’s senior class. Paulk is No. 4 in the junior class.
Coach Ashley Legaspi introduced the middle school players and Barber introduced the junior varsity and varsity players.