J.R. Tidwell/FCT
Red Bay’s Audrey Goss (11) prepares for a slap attempt during the county tournament.

Teams playing high school sports are subject to the ups and downs and challenges of a season each year.

The Red Bay Lady Tigers varsity softball team knows this better than anyone. Despite losing players for different amounts of time for varied reasons, the group finds itself playing in the 2A regional tournament at Huntsville Friday and Saturday, if necessary.

“It feels pretty good,” head coach Steve Cox said. “We’ve had a tough year.

“We’ve had a lot of injuries, sickness and other things. Finally towards the end of the season we got some of our players back, and we started putting things together.”

The road to the regional tournament has been a bit out of the ordinary for the Lady Tigers this season. The team made the tournament two years ago but was unable to repeat last year.

“We haven’t had a good season,” Cox said. “We’ve had a losing season.

“We didn’t win a regular game all season. Our two wins came in two tournaments.

“We won one at the Franklin County tournament and one at another tournament.”

Despite having only two wins on the season, Red Bay finds itself in the next level of the playoffs, all because of a win over arch rival Phil Campbell at the area tournament in Colbert Heights.

Those two wins, however, were two of the only chances Red Bay has had with a full or near-full roster at hand thanks to the illness and injuries that plagued the team this year.

“We started hitting the ball and playing together as a team,” Cox said. “The girls are tickled to death that we made it.”

How Red Bay will fare in the competition remains to be seen, as there will be several unfamiliar opponents in Huntsville.

“It’s kind of hard to say,” Cox said. “The only team there we have seen play is Colbert Heights.

“We’re kind of going into it in the dark. I know all of the teams there are good.”

Speaking of good teams, the Lady Tigers quite possibly drew the strongest team in 2A in round one of the regionals in the Hatton Lady Hornets, who have won the last three state titles in there class.

“The way I look at it, you have to beat them sometime,” Cox said. “You might as well be the first team to do it if you’re going to.”

Tournament play for Red Bay begins bright and early at 8 a.m. sharp Friday morning.