Englewood softball had a rebuilding year with many young players mentored by the two lone seniors, including senior Sarah Claveria, “It was fun. There was a lot of focus put into developing the team to have a better outlook in the future. I enjoyed playing with all the girls out there. It was really fun this year.”
(Willow Glauser)
It was a rollercoaster of a season with the team never hitting a full win streak or a losing slum.
“A lot of work was put into defense and just making routine plays, knowing what to do without in regards to offense, just being more aggressive, knowing your zone, knowing when to run that sort of thing,” Claveria said.
Claveria believes the softball team will keep getting better and better, “I think there’s a possibility that you can see the softball team at playoffs in the next two years.”
Softball coach AJ Fletcher said the team had a really good season, “We have a young team of predominantly freshmen and sophomores. So with that being said, we competed in almost every game that we played, and we have a lot to look forward to in the future. So it was overall a good year.”
Coach Fletcher hopes other athletes join softball saying it teaches important life lessons, “I think others should join and play softball, because softball is a good game to teach you about life and failure, right? I believe, softball and baseball overall, are failure sports. A successful batter or somebody who is thought of as really good is succeeding three out of 10 times. So I think the life skills that you learn from softball correlate overall with your life as an adult or as just like a high school student in general.”
Fletcher got pushed into the coaching job. He loves it, “So it was kind of a funny thing because Coach George the prior coach, kept asking me, while I was on the baseball field to help with the girls’ softball team. I had never coached softball or girls before. Once I started last year as the assistant coach, it gave me a different perspective, and I actually realized that I enjoy coaching girls quite a bit, and I started to like the game of softball and understand it a little bit more.”
Claveria plans to head to college and may play softball again, given the chance. She hopes to major in medicine.
