The Lady Greyhounds entered this week with five region games to go and trailing first-place Ola by two games.
So by all accounts, Jones County has very outside chances in terms winning a region title. But the postseason posit ion for theLadyHounds is very much in play, a case that was strengthened with last Thursday’s resilient 5-1 road win at Union Grove, two days after 6-2 loss to Ola.
The win at Union Grove came as the Wolverines were held to four hits, and the Lady Hounds broke a 1-1 tie with a four-run seventh inning.
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Jones County fell on Tuesday to Ola after the Mustangs went ahead following the second inning and pulled away to win. It followed a second inning in which JCHS got on the board through some manufacturing of runs. After Raylee Harris reached first, a stolen base and bunt by Genna Maki moved her over, just in time for Rylee Johnson’s two-run RBI for what was at the time a 2-0 Lady Hounds lead before Ola would eventually rally.
JCHS played Perry, second in the region, on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, a pair of a matchups that will say an awful lot of where the Lady Greyhounds shake out for the state tournament.
Under the current GHSA postseason format, region-standings finish do not match up with corresponding finishers from other regions. Instead, the top 32 teams will be set by PSR ratings. Entering this week, Jones County was 13th with Perry being the region’s highest-ranked team in 10th. The PSR formula is already showing that position in region standings may be a different arbiter than PSR rankings. Despite having just one region loss, Ola would be 17th if the season ended today, behind Jones County and Perry. That’s due to Ola being 8-1 in the region but 13-9 overall. Jones County, meanwhile, is 12-5 overall with key non-region wins against Veterans, Jeff Davis, Mary Persons, and Camden County.
