Kerry Roussey has been around softball long enough to know it's teams that peak when it matters most that make postseason runs. 

Fresh off winning the Putnam County Softball Tournament, Roussey hopes that is the case with the North Putnam softball team, who recently made room inside the trophy case and added this year's county tournament title to the case. 

"Winning the county was and always will be a goal for us each year.  It is great honor to be Putnam County Champions and there has some very good teams that not only won the this prestigious tournament but went on and had outstanding seasons as well deep run in the state tournament," Roussey told The Putnam County Post. 

The Cougars had solid performances from several players during the county tournament, including pitcher Kyndal Brewer, who threw 12 innings against Greencastle in the championship tilt. 

Roussey singled out Brilye Schmitz, as well as Ashlyn Stacks and Emma Williams, who belted a walk off homer to lift North Putnam. 

"Brilye Schmitz that strong performer all day long in both games as well as Ashlyn Stacks with her ability to get on base but also her defense. Both Karyssa Miller and Kylie Rust with some solid defense and timely hits when we needed them.  Our seniors each contributed all day and the underclassmen also came though with Bailee Pride’s first homerun of the season in the first game and the Daigle’s, Lexi and Hailee, causing chaos on the base paths," Roussey said.

Roussey admits the season is going "in the right direction" at the moment. However, the veteran coach admits North Putnam is dealing with "some aches and pains that we will fight through."

"With our close loss to Sullivan, we will have to be sharp on the rest of the conference games and hope that someone can knock off the Golden Arrows," Roussey said. 

It is Roussey's hope North Putnam continues to grow as a team and continue playing well as the schedule marches towards May and the rest of the season. 

"We gained a lot of respect and trust for one another with the marathon game with Greencastle and want to feed off that continue to build our confidence off of that and get stronger we closer to the state tournament.  Much of our success and to have long tournament will all depend upon how we all come together as team and that foundation has been set and now it is time to build on that foundation," Roussey said.