After tough season softball moves forward into playoffs

Freshman Sarah Phillips pitching in the game against Queen Creek on May 5th. The team won the game pushing them into the playoffs.

Meghan McGowan

Freshman Sarah Phillips pitching in the game against Queen Creek on May 5th. The team won the game pushing them into the playoffs.

Varsity had high hopes going into the season after only having two seniors graduate the year before, and a new attitude towards playing after the previous season got canceled. Even though the season started off well with two wins, the team had to work hard and try to keep their momentum going. Senior left fielder Kaylee Kates said “we were still trying to gel together and it took us a little time to figure it out.”

The team has an average field percentage of .938 but only a batting average of .284, this caused issues with trying to win games. Junior infield player Ashlee Kush said, “we are a really good team, we just couldn’t string hits together and that really hurt us in the end, we are all really good teammates and really close, but we just could not make any hits.” 

Even though the varsity team had trouble with hitting this year, they were still able to win their final game against Queen Creek, which pushed their ranking up to be a part of the playoffs. Their playoff games will start on May 8 against Xavier Prep.  

Though varsity was having a tough season with their hitting, the JV and freshman team stepped up with winning most of their games with a record of 16-1. Head coach Robert Hehe said “[Our] JV and freshman team both did exceptionally well, there is a lot of talent in our JV and Freshman group, we are excited for the following years because those young players are going to come in and have a big impact on what happens in the future.” 

Varsity softball did not have the season they were expecting, but still pushed through and made it to the playoffs. With  JV and freshman players there is lots of new talent that will be joining varsity in the upcoming years to look out for.