When the Colleyville Heritage softball team faced Euless Trinity on Feb. 19, they lost to the Trojans 4-3.
When they played again last weekend in the area round of the playoffs, it was a much different story.
A dramatic four-run rally in the seventh inning against Trinity last Friday led to a come-from-behind, 4-3 victory for the Panthers, who wrapped the best of three series on Saturday with a 5-4 win in the second game.
Colleyville Heritage’s regional quarterfinal opponent is Flower Mound, and Stephens said the Jaguars, who knocked Colleyville out of the playoffs last year, will be a tough team to beat.
"We have scouted them," coach Lance Stephens said. "They are an extremely well-rounded team. They’ve got all the tools; they’ve got speed, they’ve got people who can hit homeruns; they had one girl who hit two homeruns against Keller in one game. They’ve got the experience of being the playoffs."
Colleyville Heritage was scheduled to begin playing Flower Mound at FMHS on Thursday. Game 2 is scheduled for tonight at 7:30 on Colleyville Heritage’s turf. Game 3, if necessary, is scheduled for noon Saturday at a site to be determined.
"I think the thing that went well is that Trinity played lights out, and in the first game, we are losing 3-0 all the way through, and then we go and score four in the very last inning," Stephens said. "They did what they had to do in order to win the game. Then they turned around and did the same thing in the ninth inning in the second game. The girls just did what they needed to do to win."
Stephens said he believes that having to come back in the first game the way his team did was ultimately good for the Panthers.
"I think it’s a great confidence builder," Stephens said. "It shows that they can dig down deep and make that comeback. They could easily have rolled over and said 'well, we’ll just win two games tomorrow,’ but they didn’t. They wanted to win that game and it showed, and they never gave up."
Stephens said he does not think the revenge factor against the Trojans even entered into the equation on the part of his team in the series against Trinity.
"I think that we were so focused on the playoffs that we were a different team than we were back then," Stephens said.