In the video above, Natalie Robak and Shelbea Reed demonstrate one of their favorite softball team cheers. The cheer is just telling their teammate to keep going. This year, one of the team’s goals was to make it to the district final, but with a battle, they couldn’t. Coach Greg Jahde said, ”It certainly wasn’t because of a lack of effort.”
“We did have a very young team…which means we had up to five underclassmen starting and playing a huge role. We were a very young team, but that bodes well for our future,” said Emily Blackburn.
Another big challenge for the team was injury. Grace Lenz said, ”We had to figure out where to place players, sometimes in positions they haven’t practiced or played before.” Brenna Steager, a freshman, added that for her,” The most challenging part of the season was being out for a few weeks (due to a concussion).”
This team was a hard-working team. If you were watching a game, you could see that just from the encouragement from the teammates on the sideline while someone was batting. You could see the encouragement, even the dozens of high-fives the teammates gave each other. The team didn’t have the best season, but they always had great sportsmanship. The overall record was 7-18, and the district was 1-5. However, though they didn’t have the best record, Blackburn said,” We competed in most of the games, and we lost several at the last minute or by only a run or two. “
The team’s second-to-last game against Lakeview was shocking. Lakeview, earlier in the season, had won against them 12-4, but the team fought them and won 2-1 at the end of the season in sub-districts.