NATCHEZ — It’s all-star tournament season for Dixie Youth baseball and softball teams, and coach Greg Lees and his 9- and 10-year-old softball squad are preparing for their first tournament game.

Before hosting the tournament 10 a.m. Saturday at Natchez Softball Complex, Lee said his team is fitting in a scrimmage today.

“(Preparation) is going pretty well,” Lee said. “(Our success) is going to depend on what kind of pitchers the other team has.”

Lee said the strength of his team is its defense, and his team’s young pitching staff will have to limit walks allowed and let the infielders and outfielders make plays.

“We’ve got good gloves and good arms,” Lee said. “We have good speed, but it’s going to depend on the pitching and how many walks we give up.”

Lee said the team mostly focuses on defense during its practices, but he said, lately, he has been pulling the pitches aside for more focused instruction, since he thinks that will play a big factor in the team’s success in the tournament.

“We’ve got four or five who have pitched during the year,” Lee said. “There are one or two that throw strikes with decent speed, but it’s the control we need to practice … That’s what it has boiled down to all year: if we can pitch where they hit the ball to our defense.”

Lee said the squad has also been honing its batting order. Lee’s philosophy is to put the ball in play as much as possible with fundamental contact hitting. Lee, however, said he thinks the slugging potential is already there.

“We have a lot of work to do with out bats,” Lee said. “It’s about getting them to make contact with the ball … We do have some good bats, several girls that hit it to the fence.”

Lee said the team is relatively new to fast pitch, and he will be playing against several more-experienced teams in the weekend’s tournament.

“We haven’t been in fast pitch long, and a lot of the girls we play have been in fast pitch,” Lee said. “They have good coaches in fast pitch ball.”

If Natchez advances in its tournament-opener against Lawrence County, it will move on to face Copiah County at 11:30 a.m.