Close-knit team looks forward to season

After last year’s record of 24-5, the school’s close-knit softball team, led by coach Joe Medeiros and assistant coach Fred Santos, is looking forward to build on last year’s success. This year, the team has moved up from the El Camino league to the De Anza league.

Although the softball team lost two of last year’s key seniors, 2013 grads Briana Bowker and Alyson Nilan-Axline, the losses did not break the bonds that the team had formed the previous year.

Senior Hera Tang, last year’s El Camino division pitcher of the year, who also plays third base, said that the team’s chemistry was one of the keys to last year’s league championship win.

“When one person made a mistake, we never let her get down on herself and made sure to pick her up when we had the opportunity to,” Tang said. “We were very familiar with each other’s strengths and weaknesses on and off the field. This season, we are only going to grow tighter.”

Tang believes that being so close with one another gave their team an advantage.

“We're close and very familiar with what each of us is capable of contributing,” Tang said. “We always persevered no matter how rough our games turned out.”

Sophomore Ellie Lee, who splits time between catcher, third base and outfield, also believes that being very close off the field helped them during games.

“I think that we had an edge because we were underdogs and we meshed really well, executed plays and got hits,” Lee said. “This year, it is really going to count because now we are moving up to a new league. The teams are going to be much harder.”

The team finds that bonding is a crucial part of the season. Senior left fielder Tivoli Sisco, who has been on the varsity team since her freshman year, believes that bonding “is the best part.” During the spring, the team has many team bonding activities, including team dinners, lunches and sleepovers.

“We just have a lot of fun,” Sisco said. “[Bonding with the team] is even better than winning because everybody loves each other.”

The girls hope that team bonding activities will help them out on the field. Sophomore Eleni Spirakis thinks that the team “has a chance of making CCS this year.”

To replace last year’s seniors, the team will be adding several players to the roster, including seniors Nicole Grabar and Lois Om and juniors Maddie Sloan and transfer student Colleen Fleming.

“The players coming up to varsity can hit [well],” Spirakis said. “Last season, we were a really strong hitting team. Hopefully, we’ll keep that going.”

Last year senior Amanda Lee was voted the league’s MVP offensive player after hitting an astounding .618 average last season. Besides Lee, other hitters the team is counting on are Sisco, Spirakis, Stephanie

Hayes, Dani Bruno, Savannah Green and Analisa Ruff.

On Feb. 25, the team scrimmaged and lost to Pioneer High School, which Tang describes as a “really tough team.” As many key players of the school’s team are still finishing basketball, the team’s scrimmage was played mainly by JV varsity players.

With key members returning after the basketball CCS tournament, the team should be back to full strength and ready to play. Tang looks forward to a fun season filled with competitive games once the season begins.

“It can only get better,” Tang said. “It’s just the beginning and the varsity players on basketball will rejoin our team soon … It will be a good season.”

These sentiments are echoed by Coach Medeiros.

“Our goal is to stay above .500 and to hopefully make it to CCS again,” Medeiros said.