The Alabama High School Athletic Association softball playoffs begin this week at venues across the state. Dallas County area schools Selma, Dallas County, Southside and Ellwood Christian are among those competing.

Each of the area tournaments is double elimination with the top two teams advancing on to the qualifying round of the playoffs.

Below are previews for the tournaments Selma and Dallas County will participate in. Southside and Ellwood Christian started area tournaments Wednesday. As of press time, those scores were not available.

 

Saints to play at Hillcrest-Tuscaloosa

Selma will take part in the class 6A, area 6 tournament starting Thursday at Hillcrest-Tuscaloosa. The four-team tournament will include Hillcrest, Selma, Bryant and Chilton County.

The Saints are the fourth seed and will face Hillcrest in the first round of the tournament at 4 p.m. Thursday. Bryant and Chilton County will face off in the other first round matchup. The winner of each matchup won’t play again until Friday at 10 a.m. while the losers will play again Thursday night at 8 p.m. in an elimination game.

“[We’ve got to] lower the amount of errors,” said Saints head coach Jameriah Johnson following her team’s loss to Dallas County Tuesday.

“Small stuff that can be fixed off fundamental softball. If we stop those errors, we should be OK.”

Selma lost its previous meetings with Hillcrest 11-0 and 18-5 back on March 3 in the Saints first two games of the year.

 

Dallas County to travel to Demopolis

Dallas County will play Thursday at Demopolis High School in the class 5A, area 6 tournament, which includes only three teams.

The Hornets will face Wilcox Central in the first round Thursday at 9 a.m., with the winner moving on to play Demopolis at 10:30 a.m. The entire class 5A, area 6 tournament will be played Thursday.

Since there are only three teams in the tournament, Dallas County could end up playing five consecutive games — the opening round matchup at 9 a.m., a winner’s bracket game with Demopolis at 10:30 a.m., a loser’s bracket elimination game with Wilcox Central at 12 p.m., a winner’s bracket game with Demopolis at 1:30 p.m. and an if necessary championship game against Demopolis at 3 p.m.

In that scenario, the favorites according to seed win the first three games. Dallas County head coach Willie Moore knows anything can happen, but he’s preparing for that scenario just in case.

“It is what it is. We are in a three-team area and because we are in a three-team area, it lends where somebody has to play multiple games,” Moore said. “If we are in that situation, we are just going to have to do our best to try to make sure we are able to take advantage of the opportunities when we have opportunities to score and rest some players. We have to win two games to advance and we have to win the right two.”

Demopolis, the favorite by seed to win the tournament, defeated Dallas County 20-6 and 13-3 in meetings earlier this season.