Despite an unfortunate 2023 season, the softball team is back and prepared for victory.

The Chargers softball team is ready to tackle the 2024 season with off-season preparations, goals and positive attitudes.

Softball has been a large part of these girls’ lives for years. “On a weekday it’d be you’d go to school after school you probably go home for like I’d say an hour and then you go to practice and then sometimes if you have hitting lessons, you’ll go to hitting lessons after practice, they merge together,” third baseman Madison Baudino said.

The softball season requires an intense time commitment, often requiring hours and hours out of their weeks. “My life kind of revolves around softball and other sports, I’m always going from practices to games and trying to fit in time for homework and things like that in between,” short-stop, Courtney Bass said.

“The softball coach is Bruce Pierce, I’ve known him since I was a child but as a player, he’s really pushed us to give it our all and try our best and as a person I feel like it’s the same way, I try to be my best on and off the field,” player, Maddie Johnston said. The softball team has many coaches, including Coach Pierce, Coach “Coop” and Coach Cook.

“Coach Coop, he’s a really good coach he’s always there to help the team and it’s really nice to have him, KK (Kaitlyn McDonald), she’s like the funniest person ever and she keeps like even when she’s upset she brings the team up like no matter what,” Baudino said.

Johnston is often considered the heart of the team, being nicknamed “Maddie Daddy” because she is the “dad” of the team. “So Maddie Daddy is the person on the team that keeps everyone from getting mad at each other, she keeps things fun and light and she’s always there for you to talk to. Maddie Daddy is Maddie Johnston, but she’s always the one that’s there when you need her. It’s really important because of the amount of coaches we have and all of the players, we always have conflicting viewpoints,” said Bass. Johnston always tries to do her best for the team, as one of two seniors.

“A lot of people on that team that I’ve been playing with since we were young, I still play with people like Carly Bryant, McKenzie Mingus, Mollie Johnston and my twin sister Cooper actually and we’re all still really close friends and they all push me and we all came from the same place. Our catchphrase when we were eight was ‘believe’ so anytime any of us went up to bat we all had to tell each other to believe,” Bass said. A sisterhood of sorts has been formed between the girls on the team because they’ve been on the field together for so many years.

“Last season we lost to Butler in the first round of the region tournament and we kinda just fell apart, we weren’t being leaders, we weren’t communicating, and we were all at each other’s throats sometimes so this year we need to work on being a team so we can go farther… It’s kind of personal now, we want revenge at this point,” Bass said. Losing at Region has fueled the passion that the team has to win region this year.

“Butler is definitely going to be a revenge match because we want to get further than that game so we are training harder and stronger. Assumption will be a really big game because it’s our last home game and our senior night so there will be a lot of emotions,” Johnston said.