On April 1, the varsity softball team lost its third game of the season against Metropolitan Campus by a score of 26-16. This high scoring affair, which featured eight lead changes, marked the girls second high scoring loss to division foe Metro Campus.
In response to the game, senior captain Lianna Rada felt that the the team had an overall great performance offensively but thought that defensively they were lacking. According to Lianna, the team accumulated six errors throughout the game which not only influenced the score but the team’s whole morale.
In fact, errors took the girls out of the game in the final innings. After the fourth inning, the Lady Hawks were down 16-13, still in striking distance and close to making a comeback. But errors in the fifth and sixth innings proved to be costly as the Hawks gave up 10 runs, which shut down any hope of a comeback.
Reflecting on this, Lianna believes that the team could have potentially made a comeback if they had remained confident. Stating that the team’s upbeat attitude allowed them to keep the score close for a majority of the game, Lianna also noted that once one person made a silly mistake, the whole team just collapsed.
“I think that (confidence) is what we were missing this game because a team should be able to keep their heads up and believe they can win from start to finish even if errors happen or if they get a run in or if they strike out,” she said.
Junior Victoria Karlic also added that a loss in confidence due to errors has been a consistent pattern this season. “If we make one mistake we’ll get really down which will cause us to make more errors,” she said.
Offering a solution to this problem, sophomore and starting center fielder Irene Anastasi believes that the team can improve by bringing attention back to the game and forgetting the past. If the team “communicates about where the opposing runners are [and] where the play is at,” then Irene believes that the team will be able to uplift the team’s attitude and help their confidence issues.
The Lady Hawks hope to fix these issues and will hopefully be able to avenge their recent losses in the last game of the season against Metropolitan Campus in May.
