This year could be a learning year for the Lady Panther softball team at Georgiana High School. So far, the Lady Panthers only have a handful of players that returned from last year's season but also have a handful of players that have never played softball before.

"Hopefully we are going to try hard this season," said Andy Catrett, coach of the Lady Panthers.

"As far as how we are going to do, I don't know. A lot of the girls out there, it's their first time playing. They haven't played a sport before in their whole life. But, we are going to try hard."

Georgiana returns Patrice Cheatham, Kay Maye, Julie Scott, Tenisha Page, Courtney Rudolph and Morgan Till.

The Lady Panthers are a considerably young team with a roster that boasts only one senior, Rudolph.

This season, the Lady Panthers will take the field 10 times and will be in an area that matches Georgiana's basketball area.

Flomaton, Excel and Red Level will make up the four-team area.

"We've got the three area teams we play," said Catrett.

"Then we've got Straughn for two games and we've got McKenzie for two games. That's not an easy schedule."

"Straughn is traditionally a pretty good team and I don't know anything about McKenzie. We had 12, but J.F. Shields didn't have enough to have a team so that cancelled two of our games."

Sectionals will be held on May 7 and will be at the facility of the regular season area champion.

The sectional tournament is also the only time the Lady Panthers will be in tournament competition.

The Lady Panthers will take the field for the first time in the blue and white on March 21 when they play host to the Flomaton Lady Hurricanes. From their they travel to Excel on March 24 and then playing host to McKenzie on March 25.

The Lady Panthers start the next week by hosting Straughn on March 28 and then facing them again the next week on April 5 in Straughn.

Georgiana plays host to the Excel Lady Panthers on April 7 and travels to face the McKenzie Lady Tigers on April 8.

An April 11 games against Red Level narrows the season to two games followed by an April 14 road trip back to Flomaton.

The regular season ends for Georgiana on April 18 when they travel to Red Level for a match-up with the Lady Tigers.

The area tournament host will have been decided by this point, dependent upon the area champion. Following the area tournament, the top two teams will have to compete in back-to-back sub-regional games before the field is whittled down to the final eight. Those eight will vie for a state championship.