NECHES, Texas — The Neches Lady Tigers softball team is headed to UIL State Tournament for the first time in school history.
“We're so excited. It was the goal of our girls this year and we just couldn't be happier,” head coach Jenna Jenkins said. "These kids are used to going in other sports, volleyball, cross country, track, basketball, but they've not been in softball yet. So it's a really big deal for us and we're super excited."
Outside of Brook Hill making it to the TAPPS state semifinals, Neches is the only East Texas softball program to make it to UIL state this year.
"Not only like do we have the support from the town, but all the schools are surrounding us," said junior center fielder Libby Rain. "They've all like told us about the teams that we are playing because they all have our support. So it's nice to have them all backing us up as well and to be able to talk to them about the teams, it's really nice."
One thing is for certain, the Lady Tigers have faith in their starting pitcher, Jessie Sumpter.
"This is amazing," Sumpter said. "We've been in every other sport, but not this sport, and this is really my sport. So it's like, it feels so amazing to be able to go in my sport."
The pitcher said that this has been her goal since her freshman year.
"When we were entering the playoffs last year, and my freshman year we went up against Bloomberg who we beat our first round (of) playoffs," Sumpter said. "But this year, we put them out in the first round, so it felt really good beating them and then just going forward from that, is what really boosted us.”
Neches will take on D'Hanis in the state semifinals Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. on McCombs field at UT Austin.