The 2012 Pope Fastpitch softball season kicked off on Friday August 10th with the Longhorn invitational played at the East Cobb Baseball complex in Marietta, Georgia. The 2 day tournament saw the Greyhounds take home some hardware as the Hounds captured the silver division championship with consecutive wins on Saturday morning.

Pope starts the season 3-1 with wins over Spryaberry, East Paulding, and Mt. Pisgah. The Greyhounds lone setback came against North Paulding in a 1-0 five inning time limit loss in game 2 of the tournament. The loss kept the Greyhounds out of the gold bracket, but the strong play of the Hounds on day 1 allowed them to qualify as the top seed in the silver division.

On day 2, Pope faced off with the silver bracket #4 seed East Paulding in a game that saw Pope take the 7-3 victory. In the silver division title game, Pope squared off with 2011 state finals participant Mt. Pisgah. The strong hitting Patriots were kept at bay by the dazzling pitching performance of Kelly Barnhill.

The Pope pitching staff was a bright spot all weekend for the Hounds as Barnhill tossed consecutive 1 hitters pitching 11 innings total. Barnhill posted 25 strikeouts while walking only 5. Lindsey Walsh also dominated in the circle for the Hounds picking up 2 wins on the weekend to keep her record unblemished at 2-0.

Jenna Reilly was the offensive catalyst for the Hounds as she reached base 9 of 11 times on the weekend knocking in 2 runs and stealing 2 bases.

The silver division win marks only the 5th piece of hardware Pope Fastpitch has ever won and it is the first time in Pope History that the Greyhounds have picked up hardware in their first tournament of the year.