Softball season closes up; Lady hawks finish strong

The season has come to a close, and the girls have finished all their games, and the varsity squad ended with almost  an even number of  wins and losses.

    Sophomore Mackenzie Dunaway mentions her season on varsity was filled with ups and downs. “Iit was kind of rough because our record could have been better, but at the same time we had a hard schedule this year,” she said.

    Dunaway explained from the beginning of the year her and her team improved on fielding. The athlete explained, “In the beginning, we made a lot of errors, then near the end we started doing better with less mistakes.” Dunaway also mentions, “the coaches were hard on us sometimes because we should have won some of the games we lost.” 

    The player says, “I’m coming back next year because I liked the group of girls I play with, and it’s a very relaxed environment.” This is her second time playing with varsity, so she knew familiar faces coming back in the beginning of the season.  

    During the off season, Dunaway plans to play for Forest Hill heat, a travel team. She says, “I am very excited to be working over the summer on new skills for next year. 

    Freshman Brooke Bates and Nataile Cohee both played for JV for their first year of high school. Bates explains the season was “a little bumpy in the road but as we reached the end [they] straightened it out a bit.” 

    Cohee says, “I overall had a great season and it was a lot of fun meeting new people.” The third basemen came back from taking a little break in the past couple years. 

     Bates had a shoulder injury for part of the season but still had “an eventful season.” She worked more on her “batting skills and fielding, knowing where to get the ball to right away.” Cohee also said she “improved on batting and throwing the ball more accurately.”  

    As a team, the two girls agreed that the improvements were “hitting, catching pop flies, and communication through the team.” At the beginning of the season, the girls’ score was lower because of the “lack of balls we would actually hit.” 

     Cohee explained “our head coach, Cheryl Criss, really pushed through for us and did a good job communicating to the team when needed.” There were some ups and downs, but in the end Bates added “it was a great experience.” Both girls are “very excited to come back next year and see how it goes.”