After a long two-month season, the varsity softball team played their last game on Friday, April 14, against Vandegrift. Falling short of playoffs, the Warriors closed the season on a high note, beating the Vipers 4-1, extending their away game-winning streak against them to three straight years. For a season filled with bittersweet moments for the Warriors, the win was a bittersweet way for the season to close.

“We definitely have a lot of talented girls on the team,” Dani Martinez ‘23 said. “I think that we had a lot of injuries so we didn’t get to execute the way that we wanted. [My favorite game] was probably the last game, the Vandegrift game. We won 4-1 and that was a nice way to end the senior season.”

From day one, the team looked to carry on old traditions while also finding new ones. The team participated in activities like playing hackysack before every game and sharing special team bonding moments through team dinners.

“We may have not done the best, [but] we still had fun,” Emmy King ‘25 said. “We had fun at the Galveston tournament, our last game we beat Vandegrift and it was so exciting, and we had some home-runs, and it was awesome.” 

There are other celebrations too, with senior catcher Kylie Wardlow ‘23 continuing her softball career into college by committing to Pratt Community College in Junction City, Kansas.

“I think it’ll be fun and good for me to improve my skills and go to college at the same time,” Wardlow said. “[I anticipate] a little bit of a learning curve, but I’m only going to a [junior college] so it won’t be too intense. I think it will be pretty similar honestly and while I’m nervous, I’m excited.” 

Although the season was shorter than the team hoped for, the team continued to look on the bright side and push through setbacks. 

“We had high hopes for the season but we just had a lot of things not go our way,” Wardlow said. “We had so many injuries and so many people out from said injuries and other things, and it just kind of did not go our way. It was a good learning season though, a lot of life lessons learned.”

With the seniors’ legacy in mind, the team will go into the off-season with renewed energy after an eventful final game. The Warriors will look to build off of that momentum and begin preparations for the next year ahead.