The Sealy Lady Tiger softball team closed its regular season earlier this week with road trips to Brookshire and Bellville Monday and Tuesday and await the beginning of the postseason. Sealy won by run rule over Royal, 15-0 in four innings, but final results from Tuesday’s contest with Bellville were unavailable by press time.

The regular-season finale was set to determine the final playoff seedings. Sealy entered Tuesday’s game against Bellville tied with Wharton for second with 6-3 records behind 9-0 El Campo.

The lead-up to the regular-season finale was not exactly what Lady Tiger head coach Brittney Whitehead had planned, however. Sealy’s contest with Royal was supposed to be played last Friday but rain and UIL academic competitions forced the game to be played Monday, the day before the final contest of the regular season.

“This is not at all what we wanted before playing Bellville, we had a good outing against Bellville last time and we hit really well but the last game we played was against El Campo and we only had four hits so this wasn’t good pitching to kind of practice for Tuesday’s game,” Whitehead said after Monday’s win. “We’re just really going to have to focus in the 45 minutes to an hour of hitting that we get before we go and get our heads mentally focused but they are always ready to play Bellville.”

Still, a run-rule win is always nice to have in your back pocket where almost everyone got to see the field.

“We did not hit them as well as we did when we played them the first time,” Whitehead said of the second meeting with Royal. “Everyone got to play, I think everyone got two atbats so that was good for the team. It’s just a lot different pitching than we’re used to seeing, we saw three different pitchers and all three of them were different so they had to make an adjustment every time they went to the plate.”

Even players that were not usually on the bench retained their energy, Whitehead said.

“Some kids on the bench that aren’t normally on the bench still had their high spirits and were cheering and screaming and banging on the buckets,” the head coach said. “We saw a little bit of everything but we’ve got one game left and that’s going to tell us how much they want it. Do they want to go No. 2 or do they want to go No. 3? Tomorrow night’s going to be the tell as to how we end the regular season.”