North Adams head coach Paula Armstrong and her North Adams Lady Devils will open Division V district tournament play on May 13 on the road at Eastern Brown. (Photo by Tim Daulton)
By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
Thanks to this spring’s graciousness of Mother Nature, a lot of the 2025 softball regular season is still left to complete, but tournament time waits for no one. With regular season action still in progress, the Southeast District released its district tournament brackets on Sunday, with play beginning next week. The four Adams County squads are spread among three divisions, North Adams and West Union in Division V, Peebles in Division VI and Manchester in Division VII.
In Division V, Coach Paula Armstrong and her North Adams Lady Devils are a scary opponent with a very deceiving record but unfortunately the seedings are mainly based on record and the 6-11 Lady Devils will be the #16 seed in a crowded Division V. With that seed, they will open district tournament play in the quarterfinals with a trip to Eastern Brown to face the 11-4 and #9 seeded Lady Warriors on May 13 at 5 p.m. The two teams have met twice this spring, with Eastern taking both outings, 1-0 and 7-0 and the winner of this district match up will move on to Ohio University on May 21 for a district semifinal against the winner of #4 seeded Piketon (14-1) and #21 seeded Oak Hill (1-10).
“It is always unfortunate for our SHAC teams to play each other early in the tournament,” said Coach Armstrong. “The 16 seed is about what I figured with our record but I was surprised that Eastern wasn’t seeded higher. It will be a good game to come out and watch and it will be important for us to get our bats going early in the game and play solid defense.”
Also in Division V, Coach Miranda Grooms and the West Union Lady Dragons (2-10) are the #19 seed and will be on the road on May 13, facing #6 seeded Eastern Meigs (12-5). If the Lady Dragons can pull that one out, they will move to the district semis on May 19 at Ohio University, facing the winner 0f #7 seed Adena (12-6) and #18 seed River Valley (4-11).
Residing in the Division V brackets are first-year head coach Amanda Myers and the 4-11 Peebles Indians, who will be the #11 seed. The Lady Indians will be on the road on Monday, May 12 to face #6 seeded Beaver Eastern (11-6). The winner of that district quarterfinal will advance to the district semifinals on May 21 at Unioto High School, matched up with #3 seeded Lynchburg-Clay (13-3).
Finally, back in Division VII are Coach Matthias Applegate and his tournament-tested Manchester Lady Greyhounds, fresh off a pair of nice district runs in the past two seasons. This year the 12-4 Lady Hounds earned the #4 seed and will host a district quarterfinal contest on May 14 at 5 p.m., with the opponent being the #13 seeded Waterford Lady Wildcats (1-10). The winner of that game moves on to Rio Grande on May 19 to face the winner of #5 seeded Reedsville Eastern (11-7) and #12 seeded Sciotoville East (2-6) in the district semifinals.
“When I looked at the records of all the teams in the SE district I assumed we would fall in the 4/5 seed range,” said Coach Applegate. “We have four losses, two to D1 schools while in Tennessee and the other two losses were to league teams. Our district has two teams ranked in the top four in the state (Symmes Valley and Notre Dame), so it is a very tough district. We need to start hitting better in order to advance throughout the tournament, as of right now we are really struggling to string together multiple runs.”
The complete softball brackets for the Southeast District can be found at https://www.ohsaa.org/Southeast-Sports-Tournaments/Softball.
