The snow has melted and it is now spring, with that being said the girls’ 2023 softball season has begun, and the team cannot be more excited about it. 

Senior Linda Hernandez has been playing for 6 years now and is acting as manager/ player for the team. She says, “My favorite memory of softball is definitely the bus and when the team goes out to eat, or even the game itself.” Hernandez believes that the best thing about softball is how you are able to build new connections and being able to have people that you can rely on. When asked about what it is like to be a senior on the team she said, ”It is kind of scary because it is your last year and you know that you are not going to be doing anything with the sport after.”

This will be Coach Buck’s second year coaching softball and is already looking forward to the season: “I am very optimistic for the season, we are a lot faster than we were last year and much more self-motivated as well as coachable which is a big deal to me, that is one of the things that I want to be said about my players to be coachable. I think we will do better wins loss this year but that is not what it is really about for me, I would prefer that my players become young women of integrity, and I ultimately want to change the vision of how people see the softball program as to be a good program for integrity and how we play the game and what kind of people we are.”

Buck is doing things a little bit differently this year, he states, “This year everybody is doing all of the different drills and stations because I want to be very versatile as players, I think that is a very important thing, especially in high school for the younger players to play both infield and outfield. With that being said I think that will help us improve our season.”

This season the team is striving to win districts and think it is going to be possible with the speed the team has and by playing as a team. When asked how the team prepares for an upcoming game, Buck replies, “Mostly I focus on our defensive play, most of the drills that we do are defensive, we have two defensive drills and one set of offensive drills, I think that if we have a good defense then it overcomes a lot of adversity, so that is how I mainly focus on preparing for games and moving forward.”

Buck has both long-term and short-term goals. His long-term goal is to always increase the integrity of his players, their motivation, self-motivation, and how they become as people. He wants them to become the best versions of themselves, which is his ultimate goal of doing this. Another long-term goal of his is, as said before, to help the outlook of the program. In the past people never really didn’t look at wins and losses for softball; it is just something they would play. He wanted it to become more like baseball this season because he believes that the team is very capable of doing so. With that being said Buck also mentions, “We have a lot of younger kids that played 12u and 14u, so I think that we can turn this into a very successful program.” Buck’s short-term goal again mentioned previously is districts, he says, “I think districts is a very capable goal for us and I really want to bring districts home to Concord for softball.”

Junior Zoe Schultz who has been playing softball for 11 years now and has been a catcher for the varsity team since freshman year says, “My goal for the season is to make it to regionals and to grow as a player. I love softball because it is a good environment and I love the sport itself.” She also states that, “Softball will help me in the future because it shows me what good sportsmanship looks like, teaches me how to be a team player, and it shows me that if I keep working at something I will keep getting better and better. ”

This will be sophomore Danni Fritz’s second year playing softball, and she believes that with the way that the team has been practicing they will have a good season. She also mentions, “I think the team has improved most with our throwing and overall our teamwork.” Fritz has been preparing for the season mostly by making sure she stays hydrated and keeps up with her conditioning during practices. Fritz also has a goal for this season that she hopes to achieve, it is, “My goal for this season is to just play better than I did last year.”

The girls’ season will start off right after spring break with their first game being on April 4th at East Jackson.