When Amanda Yocum took over as Porters Chapel Academy’s softball coach in 2006, the program was coming off a third-place finish at the MAIS Class A tournament and building a strong pedigree.

The emphasis, there, is on “was.”

PCA barely had enough returning and new players to field a team in Yocum’s first season. Understandably, a number of lean years followed as the program went through more of a build than a rebuild.

“I played my first year with nine (players). I actually played a few games with eight,” Yocum said. “We suffered through three or four years where softball just wasn’t strong. We didn’t have a lot of girls who were playing.”