CALHOUN, Ga. — It’s not that the Calhoun High School softball team is bored with the regular season. The Lady Yellow Jackets just can’t wait until postseason play begins.

They registered their 11th consecutive win Thursday, 7-0 over Dade County, making them 8-0 in Region 7-AA and 22-3 overall. They have outscored region foes 75-4. They just returned from winning the North Cobb tournament, where they defeated defending Class AAAAA champion Lassiter, AAAAA contender East Paulding and Class AAAA Hiram.

“That tournament proved to me that we’re ready,” Calhoun coach Diane Smith said. “There were 20 teams in the field, and we were the only double-A team and we won it. We wanted to play the best competition we could find because we know these girls have high expectations. Really, we can’t wait to get started.”

Calhoun had little trouble with the young Lady Wolverines (5-13), who replaced seven seniors from a year ago. Senior pitcher Maddie Monroe, fresh off striking out 18 consecutive batters in a win over Sonoraville, pitched a one-hitter, struck out 13 and walked none.

She got the only support she would need in the bottom of the first inning as the potent Calhoun offense wasted little time getting to Dade pitcher Haleigh McBrayar. Speedy Christine Olney led off with a single and scored on a single by Morgan Hall. After Bre Johnson reached on an errror, senior catcher Dew Karavin smashed a two-run homer at least 50 feet over the right-center fence. Morgan Stewart later made it 4-0 with an RBI double.

“This was a total team effort,” Smith said. “Maddie seems to get stronger every game. She pitched all three games Saturday and was stronger in the last game. We got her some runs early, and she took care of the rest.”

Monroe took the opportunity to work on her off-speed pitch, using it with great effectiveness. At one point she struck out six of seven batters, setting the Dade batters up with her fastball and finishing them with the curve.

“Everything pretty much was working for me, but my curveball, which is something I’ve been working on, was good,” Monroe said. “Usually, the rise ball is my strikeout pitch, but I used both tonight. The early runs helped, and we really settled down after that first inning.”

Dade’s McBrayar settled down after the first, working through several runners to shut the Lady Jackets down for three innings before Calhoun scored three runs to ice the game in the fifth. Allana Brown and Shae Padgett got the RBIs on groundouts.

Olney and Monroe had two hits each for the winners.

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