“I am proud and tickled to death,” Pell City head coach Terry Isbell said. “That’s a big accomplishment; the only one I remember was maybe Jessica Smith making All-State. We have had several players to make honorable mention. I think Lexi will be the second one in the program to make All-State. We are very happy for her; she has had an exceptional career at Pell City High School. She is going to play some more and is getting a free education, so that is what it is all about.”
Lawley’s bat is one of the reasons the Lady Panthers were so successful this season. Her timely hitting led Pell City to victory several times this season. On April 13 against rival Hewitt-Trussville, Lawley hit a two-run homerun to give Pell City a 3-2 victory.
“She had 15 homeruns, several of them were game-changing homeruns,” Isbell said. “It wasn’t just one on or anything like that, it came in a point in the game where we needed a big hit and she got it for us.”
The Gadsden State signee was surprised when she found out she was named to the All-State team. She said this accomplishment would not have been possible without her teammates.
“I didn’t know until coach Isbell called when I was watching Tennessee-Arizona in the World Series game,” Lawley said. “I worked hard for it all my life. It has been softball, softball, softball, and softball. My dad taught me everything. I am not an award type person, I’m just OK and just go with the flow; you gave me this OK, thanks. I couldn’t have done it without my teammates, they make me look good, especially Brittnay (Gillison) at short, and Codie (Lambert) when I throw down to second to pick somebody off. They both made me look good. Allie (Hall) when she throws the pitches not in the dirt or monstrously high. Especially when Codie was batting behind me I will hit a homerun and she comes back right behind it.”
This season Lawley batted .428 from the plate, hit 15 homeruns, 23 doubles and drove in 54 runs.
“When I tried to hit them (homeruns) I didn’t hit them, but at the beginning when I hit a lot of them I was just trying to hit doubles and they just kept going,” Lawley said. “My philosophy is get hits and they will eventually go over, and they just started going over and they wouldn’t stop.”
This season the Lady Panthers softball team recorded a school record 34 wins. Lawley believes this year’s team came together and got along better than teams had in the past years.
“I think that we gelled more this year than the past couple of year,” Lawley said. “There was no drama or hardly any drama. It’s always drama when you have a bunch of girls together, but we always put it behind us when step on the field. Coach always tells us we don’t have to be friends off the field, we just have to talk to each other and mesh when we are out here. We didn’t let anything stand in our way. We knew we were going to the Regional Tournament this year, that was one of our goals and we did it.”
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