Johnston, SC – It had been some time since Strom Thurmond High School’s Lady Rebels softball team had been able to celebrate a region championship – three decades in fact. That wait, however, is finally (and emphatically) over.

The Lady Rebels ended the championship drought this season in impressive fashion behind a potent offense that combined with solid pitching and defense to storm unbeaten through Region 3-AA competition with an 8-0 record to secure the team’s first region championship since 1993. 

The Lady Rebels are 19-2 overall, headed into the Class AA state playoffs which begin Wednesday (3/3) when the team plays host to Keenan High School starting at 6:00 p.m. at The Rebel Zone.

“It’s all about the hard work of these girls,” stated Lady Rebels’ head coach, Drake Dunlap. “The girls have worked extremely hard, especially during the offseason, and we have two really good coaches in Greg Clark and Ashlee Chinn helping me. We started last year implementing some new things. The girls are very coachable and they’ve bought in.”

“Our pitching has been solid since last season with Emmy and Madison,” commented Dunlap. “Where we have improved this year is offensively. We have three girls batting over .400 and several more batting over .300 and we’re always going to run the bases and manufacture some runs that way too.” 

The Lady Rebels will only lose two seniors to graduation, meaning there will be plenty of talent returning next season to defend their region title. If something about that specific scenario seems familiar to fans of the Lady Rebels, it should.

“We only lost two seniors from last year’s team, so we were able to keep the majority of the team together,” commented Dunlap. “Our team’s chemistry is as good as it can be.”

It’s too early to look ahead, however, as the Lady Rebels have plenty of work left to do with the state playoffs looming. Dunlap says the team will try to keep the momentum going and keep adding to the team’s impressive win total.

“We’re just going to keep doing what we’ve been doing,” stated Dunlap. “We’ve lost to one team all season and we’re on a ten-game winning streak so we’re going to keep things the same.”