The sound of aluminum bats hitting neon-yellow colored softballs filled the air early this week at Spalding High School as nearly 20 players came out for conditioning drills and team tryouts. The conditioning drills, where the girls hit and fielded grounders, started Monday and tryouts officially started Wednesday.

The drills and tryouts were held at the SHS softball field and head softball coach Rusty Hudson said he was glad to see the girls come out and try to make the 2012 team. He said there were as many as 10 new faces on Monday.

“We had a decent amount of girls come out and that’s always a good thing,” Hudson said. “We graduated two seniors, but we should have five or six starters returning this season.”

And speaking of the two graduated seniors — Laura McGhee and Mallory O’Kelley — both were at SHS to help their former coaches and teammates Monday evening. They shagged grounders, pitched and helped retrieve softballs in order to help their former team.

As far as the current crop of prospective Lady Jags, Hudson said they will be young this year but they will have some experience under their youthful belts.

“We had as many as 9 freshmen on our roster and about 4 to 5 played last season, so they received valuable experience,” he said. “Some of the girls also played a lot of softball this summer so hopefully they’ll be ready for the fall.”

The lone senior on the 2012 team, catcher Haedyn Kilgore, said she is ready for the season to start.

“We really want to do well and win a lot of games this year,” Kilgore said.

The Lady Jags will get their season started next Wednesday, Aug. 8, as they will host the Fayette County Lady Tigers in a scrimmage game at 5:30 p.m. The regular season officially begins two days later as Spalding will participate in the annual Diamond Classic at Volunteer Park in Griffin on Aug. 10-11.