GULF SHORES, Alabama — The Spanish Fort Lady Toros finished in second place in the AHSAA Class 5A South Region tournament at the Gulf Shores Sportsplex on Saturday and reached the state tournament in Montgomery for the first time in four years.

It is the second trip to the state tournament for Spanish Fort's seniors, who advanced to the tournament as ninth graders on the varsity squad in 2009. 

"These seniors have been a part of this team since they were in seventh grade," Spanish Fort head coach Sean Womack said. "This is their sixth year, and I'm excited for them because they get finally got a chance to go back and do something that they feel like they left on the field four years ago."

The Toros (29-17) swept through pool play on Friday with a 3-0 record, but lost two straight to St. Paul's (28-4-4) in the championship round. St. Paul's won the final, regional deciding game 6-2. Morgan Yates took the loss in the championship game, giving up eight hits with three walks and three strikeouts. Taylor Nail had a triple and an RBI, L.A. Raines had a double and an RBI and Jade Phillips finished 2-for-3 with a double.

"It was a tale of two days. (Friday) we played lights out, we were peaking at the right time," Womack said. "For three games we were the best team in this region, no ifs ands or buts. We came back today, had a good warm up session, but I could tell from the bench to the field that we didn't have the same intensity that we had the day before."

Emily Messer was named the tournament MVP, and Konner Wilks got the win in the circle for the Saints. Samantha Leach had three RBIs for the Saints, who play the North Central Region runner up at 10:30 a.m. Thursday at Montgomery's Lagoon Park in the state tournament.

Womack said his team might have suffered from a lack of emotion after reaching the regional finals and securing a spot in the state tournament.

"We are a team that has fed off of emotion all year long. When there is a lack of emotion, there is a lack of motion. We made errors in both games against St. Paul's that we haven't made in two and half weeks."

Spanish Fort will play the winner of the North Central Region on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. at Lagoon Park.

"We are going up there with the goal of winning the state championship," Womack said. "I believe that we are good enough to win it. A lot of luck needs to go our way and we will have to play with emotion, play lights out like we did on Friday."