GMC softball team set for national championship tournament

The GMC softball team is headed to NJCAA Division I national championship after beating South Georgia State twice in the GCAA softball tournament championship earlier this month.

Head coach Ashley Bunn will be making her second trip to the national championship and her first time as a head coach. It’s also the program’s first trip.

“But I’m more excited for my girls,” Bunn said. “It’s a once in lifetime thing that not many people get to experience.”

The Bulldogs are seeded 16th in the national tournament and will play No. 1 seed Tyler College at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.

“It’s going to be tough competition, but as long as we go out there and play our best, I think we can hold our own with most of the other teams,” Bunn said.

GMC carries a 35-22 record into the national tournament, which will be played in St. George, Utah.

“I guess our season would be kind of like a tale of two halves,” Bunn said. “We started out pretty slow, but we played some tough competition.”

The turning point for the Bulldogs was a team meeting in early March.

“We had had a couple of ... just not seeing eye to eye between players, coaching staff, stuff along those lines,” Bunn said.

The players had a meeting and then came together with the coaching staff for another meeting.

“They act more like a family than last year’s team, a little bit, and that’s the biggest difference,” Bunn said.

Those meetings paid off.

Sophomore Kiley Rediger has 58 RBI, and Taylor Little, the starting shortstop and sophomore captain, has scored 59 runs and leads the team with 14 home runs.

GMC lost to South Georgia State four times this season before getting revenge in the conference tournament title.

“We were all just focused on that one goal,” Little said. “Before that game one of my teammates, Sara Alderman, she read us a devotion about setting goals and staying on a straight path and not letting anything distract us.”

GMC beat South Georgia State 3-2 to get into the championship round and won 8-3 for the title. Jordan Crews and Kirsten Albright each had three RBI.

“Their support for each other has gotten us this far,” Bunn said.

This story was originally published May 17, 2016 at 4:48 PM with the headline "GMC softball team set for national championship tournament."