Girls’ varsity softball began its first varsity season ever this spring with the hopes of making memories and building interest in a new sports program. The team played their first game on Thursday, Feb. 27 against Public Safety Academy, and, despite a homerun made by Starr Hernandez (‘28), fell with a 3-25 loss.
Coach Sergio Arana noted that the primary goal of this first season is to learn as much as possible.
“I only have one player that’s played before. All my other players are brand new,” Arana said. “But with that newness comes hopes and expectations. We want to build the program and continue to get better and build a tradition and culture of teamwork. We can use that to continue building the program.”
Goals for the Season
Regardless of the newness of the team, Coach Arana and softball team members set additional goals for their own coaching and playing.
“Even if we don’t win a lot of games, I’m excited about building the program,” Arana said. “I’m putting players in a lot of new positions that they don’t already know. Maybe one is doing first base this game, and she’ll do third base next game. The goal is to see what players work best in which positions.”
“We’re a new team, so we’re trying to improve on everything,” Evelyn Sosa (‘28) said. “We really want to improve on sliding and stealing bases. I’ve seen other teams do it, and I want to see ours do it, too.”
“Our team really needs to work on catching the ball and throwing it,” Starr Hernandez (‘28) said. “We also need to work on communicating that we are passing the ball to other players.”
Playing the First Game
Despite the loss, softball players mentioned some successes during their game against Public Safety Academy.
“Starr really took on the challenge to pitch for our team,” Arana said. “Pitcher is not the position she normally plays outside of school, but she took it on and did great. She threw a lot of fastballs, which helped her get a few strikeouts. She also made history by hitting the first home run for our varsity softball team ever.”
“I thought Lilly [Navarro] really did a good job, too,” Genesis Castaneda (‘28) said. “Lily got the ball from the shortstop then threw it to first base to get an out.”
Coach Arana noted, too, they can learn from the schools they play.
“The other team [Public Safety Academy] had a lot of good hitters,” Arana concluded. “They also had a lot of speed, too, which helped them steal bases. I think we can learn from them to improve our own game.”
Looking Ahead
Coach Arana concluded that the season is really all about learning from each game and from our own team members.
“My biggest words of advice are to stay in each game,” Arana said. “I did tell our team that it was going to be a tough year because we’re such a new program. But we have to continue in order to build something. Keep your heads held up high. Smile through the whole process. It doesn’t matter if the score is 30 to nothing or whether we have close games. What matters is that we give 150% each and every single time to play, learn, and improve. More than anything, too, we need it to have fun with our team members as we build this.”
