PREP SOFTBALL: Strong seasons, disappointing finishes for Bruins, Flashes

The South Florence and Johnsonville softball teams made it farther than most would have thought possible at the beginning of the year.

In fact, both coaches agreed the only real disappointment was how the season ended.

The Bruins and Flashes were swept in their best-of-three state title series, marking the end of what was a remarkable season for both.

“We lost five seniors off of last year’s lower state championship team, and actually made it farther this year than they did,” South coach Bobby Jones said. “We had a good season. We just didn’t play our best we when needed to in those last two games.”

The Bruins (26-3) lost only one game during the regular season before the series against Gaffney. Jones credits the strong start to the chemistry on his team.

“This team was really close from early on,” Jones said. “There weren’t a whole lot of problems on this team. One of the best I’ve ever coached.”

South returns all but four seniors and three starters for next season. Kelsey Pruitt, Abby Yarborough and Jasmyn Holliday will be hard to replace in the lineup and in the field, but the Bruins do return staff ace Kaiti Harper (22-2).

The Flashes (26-9) also had a bittersweet end. Johnsonville made history by capturing the first Class lower state title in school history.

The back-to-back losses to Buford put a damper on what had been a steady five-year journey for the Flashes and coach Ryan Poston.

“We’ve come a long way, and accomplished things that the program hadn’t ever done before,” Poston said. “We’d have loved to have played a little better and won it at the end, but Buford’s a good team and they played a little better than we did.”

The last three years, the Flashes finished third, second and first in Region 8-A, one of the toughest softball regions in the state. Johnsonville managed wins against Lake View and East Clarendon in the postseason, two of the top-ranked teams in the state.

The Flashes return all but two players (Taylor Prosser and Morgan Owens) next season.

“We lose two really good players and we’re going to have to have some step up,” Poston said. “But we lost one of our best players before this year and we were still successful. The JV team has won region the last two years, so I expect some of those players to come up and contribute.”

Johnsonville will also return staff ace Rachel Gaster who was 15-5 with a 0.68 earned run average and 125 strikeouts in 123 innings.