MOULTRIE – Colquitt County scored a combined 13 runs in their final at bats to win both ends of its doubleheader on Thursday at Tift County and claim the Region 1-6A championship.
The Lady Packers scored four runs in the top of the seventh inning to win the first game 8-3.
And in the nightcap, Colquitt scored nine runs in the top of sixth and finished off the Lady Devils with a 12-1 run-rule victory.
The doubleheader win completed a sweep of the three-game series with Tift County that started with a 5-4 walk-off win on Tuesday at Packer Park.
The Colquitt girls are now 12-2 in the region and 17-8 overall.
In Taylor Barber’s first year as head coach, the Lady Packers won their third region title in four years and fourth since 2019.
They finished second in the region behind Lowndes last season.
“If you had told me on the first day of practice in July that we would win a region championship, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Barber said. “We had a long way to go.
“But I’ve been blessed to walk into this situation. The kids and the staff didn’t have to believe.
“But they did and they showed the character of being a Packer. They earned this.”
The Lady Packers will be the No. 1 seed from Region 1 heading into the Class 6A playoffs that start Oct. 16-17.
They will play host to the No. 4 team from Region 5 — expected to be either Cherokee or Etowah —in a best-of-three series.
Richmond Hill, which Colquitt swept in the first series of the season in back late August, won both games of its doubleheader with Camden County on Thursday and finishes second in the region with an 11-4 region record.
Colquitt, which had to rally twice in the final two innings to defeat Tift County at home on Tuesday, never trailed in either game on Thursday against the team that Barber coached the last five seasons.
In the opener, in which the Lady Packers banged out 10 hits, they led 4-3 before putting the game away with a four-run seventh.
In the nightcap, Colquitt took a 3-2 lead into the sixth inning when they scored nine times.
The Lady Packers had 15 hits in the second game, including a double by Kamry Paulk and Lanie Burley’s second home run of the series.
Peyton Arrington, who pitched all seven innings to get the win on Tuesday, again went the distance in the circle in Game 1, allowing just six hits and one earned run. She struck out four.
Tift scored all three of its runs in the bottom of the fourth after the Lady Packers had jumped out to a 4-0 lead.
RaJayla McBride, Rhylee Tillery and Rheygan Harrell each had two hits for the Lady Packers.
Burley, Paulk, Libby Wetherington and Montana Tatum had the others.
Colquitt took advantage of two Tift County errors and a Tillery RBI single to score four times in the top of the seventh to put the game out of reach.
Arrington retired the Lady Devils in order in the bottom of the seventh to get the win.
Arrington also got the win in Game 2, pitching the first four innings and giving up the lone Tift County run, raising her season record to 9-3.
Her Thursday performances lowered her ERA to 1.86.
“She is as sharp a girl as you will ever meet,” he said of his diminutive junior right-hander. “And when she crosses that line and gets in that circle, she is a different kid. She holds herself to a higher standard.”
Barber decided on Wednesday to use Arrington as far as she could go on Thursday.
“And she said she would do whatever it took,” Barber said.
Not wanting to put her health in jeopardy, he lifted her in the fourth inning of the second game.
“I told her I was so proud of her,” Barber said. “She carried us as far as she could take us. And then Kamry came in and shut the door.”
Paulk pitched the final two scoreless innings in Game 2.
Arrington and Paulk combined to hold the Lady Devils to just two earned runs and 13 hits in the two games.
Wetherington and Paulk each had three hits in the second game. McBride and Arrington had two each.
The other hits came from Tillery, Tatum, Burley, Harrell and Allie Eure.
Burley’s third home run of the season led off the nine-run sixth inning for the Lady Packers.
It was the first of eight Colquitt County hits in the inning, in which Burley, Eure, Tillery, Wetherington and Tatum drove in runs.
The first two Tift County batters singled in the bottom of the sixth before Paulk retired the final three batters to clinch the region championship.
“In all three games, we found ourselves in a dogfight,” Barber said. “But we came through. It says so much about the kids themselves and that they have bought into the program.”
Freshman shortstop Marlee Veazey had three hits in the second game and four in the doubleheader for Tift County, which falls to 8-7 in the region and 16-10 overall.
Colquitt County is scheduled to play host to Lanier County at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday at Packer Park.
Barber said fans are asked to bring donations, especially of toiletries, to help those in Lanier County that were hard hit by Hurricane Helene.
The Lady Packers also will travel to Cairo for a 5 p.m. game on Wednesday.
A rained-out region game against Lowndes is scheduled to be played on Thursday.