The Wildcats softball team is starting to end their season with high hopes and high motivation for achieving their goals.
With only one game left before regionals, the team’s record as of May 14th is 10-17 and they’re hoping for more improvement to advance to state.
“Our goal is to make it to regionals and state and to learn from our mistakes and get better each day”, Kailey Morrell, freshman, said.
“One of our goals is to win regionals, and the ultimate mission for the entire season is to make it to state,” Jacky Matthews, senior, and captain said.
While players strive for regionals, others are focused on improving the team so regionals can be an obtainable goal.
Although it is head coach Anne Campbell’s last season, her effort in teaching has not dwindled down.
”Every year is different, and we work on our own goals each year. We’ve focused on a lot of fundamental work because we are a young team with many sophomores and freshmen on the varsity,” Campbell said. “Our goal is to get better every game”
Lauren Blaskey, junior, and co-captain said, “Our team’s goal is to get better and to not focus on just winning all the time”.
As Blaskey said, the team tries to divert their attention to things other than stressing about winning, such as team bonding. The team bonds in many ways, such as preparing mentally before games and having a little fun to get their adrenaline pumping.
“We listen to music on the bus and that gets us excited before games, and sometimes we have dance circles to get each other excited before our games,” Blaskey said.
Dance circles are where each player drags the dirt with their feet while chanting, and then about five players, one at a time, do a dance a move. However, other team members prefer to prepare themselves differently.
“Personally, I take a few minutes by myself to think about how I will play for the game, and I plan what I will do, how I will play, and I make sure I always think positive,” Lindsey Bouska, sophomore, said.
With such a young team, including only two seniors, the team may not face too many obstacles with players leaving.
“I feel like it will be difficult losing the seniors, but we should be able to overcome it and keep moving forward,” Blaskey said.
“Anytime teams lose seniors it’s always hard because they provide some leadership and experience,” Campbell said.
Even though the team faces many hardships, such as the weather, they are still positive and hard-working every game.
“We’ve had so many rain-outs and snow-outs, so the players are playing every single day and it is a mental grind each day to come play,” Campbell said.