With five straight wins Mickey Harper and the Chapel Hill Lady Panthers are hoping they have regained some of the magic from last year’s undefeated region championship team.

“Our goals haven’t changed a bit, we want to get back to where we were, win this new region, and make another run at state,” said Harper.

Where they were last year, was on the brink of a state title, finishing the season 37-3 and in third place overall in AAAAA.

A few things are different this year, namely the competition. With a drop into AAAA, Harper’s team finds itself in a much more familiar place.

“We’re excited to be back down in AAAA, it gives us the chance to play some of our local rivals (Douglas County, Alexander, Lithia Springs) again,” said Harper. “The region itself (5AAAA) is tough, the level of competition throughout maybe even better than it was last season.”

With new teams in the batter’s box the Lady Panthers are sending two familiar faces to the mound, and for Harper’s squad that’s a good thing.

“The team has been led by strong pitching, we returned two great pitchers from last year in Morgan Sikes and Courtney Watts along with a great catcher (Cheyenne Maske) who does a great job of handling things behind the plate,” said Harper.

Chapel Hill has allowed one run or less in all seven of their wins including four shutouts.

Offensively the Lady Panthers have started slow after losing four players out of a strong lineup that averaged 7.5 runs per game in 09’.

“Bria Epps holds the key to our season offensively, she has tremendous speed and we have moved her from the 9th spot to the top of the batting order, we need her to be on base,” said Harper of his offense, “We need everyone to step up really, including our bench, even if it means a pinch runner here or defensive replacement there,” he continued.

Wins over Villa Rica (4-0) and Lithia Springs (9-0) pushed the Lady Panthers record to 7-2 and 3-1 in region play, with region contests at Douglas County Tuesday, and Thursday at Paulding County.

After beating Chapel Hill earlier in the year Alexander continues to sit atop the region at 3-0.