By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Southeast Alamance has made major strides in each of its three softball seasons since the school opened.
“We focused on building a culture and this year it has paid off,” coach Tiffany Helton said. “It’s different from where we’ve been.”
The banner season came to a close last week, but the Stallions made an impression with a 26-3 record.
Sixth-seeded West Car-teret swept top-seeded Southeast in the best-of-3 East Regional finals by winning 7-1 in Game 2 last Thursday in Morehead City.
Southeast’s ascension went from a 6-12 record in 2024 to 12-12 in 2025 and then this year’s 23-game winning streak before its first defeat. The Stallions won the Mid-Carolina Conference regular-season championship.
Senior first baseman Brooke Hardister said much of the success involved “a bunch of friends we have on this team.” The team’s other senior starters were Amarie Contreras and Addison Reich.
The breakthrough season has cast the Stallions in a different light.
“We’ve had a lot of success this year, so we’ve been in new situations,” Helton said. “We’ll need to learn how to handle success.”
In its last game, Southeast trailed 7-0 – giving up four runs in the third inning and three more in the fifth – before posting its run in the sixth inning. Ava Wheeley tripled and scored.
West Carteret senior left-hander Caitlin Dumarce struck out 11 batters without a walk.
After the Stallions were no-hit victims in the series opener, they had three hits in the second game. Katie Lloyd’s double and Ashtyn Smith’s single were the other hits. Maiya Woody pitched a complete game for the Stallions.
West Carteret (22-4) and West Region champion Enka (23-3) were assigned slots for the state championship series Wednesday and Thursday at Duke.
