This month, Girls Varsity Softball kicked off its season with a handful of exciting games. As they’re getting started, the team has a current record of 3-4 but is ambitiously improving.

To freshman Sophia Garzona, the team’s “strong offense” set the tone for a successful game against San Marino High School. According to sophomore Julianni Santa Anna, senior Susan Harrison was a star player during the game as a result of her strong hitting, scoring 2 home runs for the team. However, she also notes, “The game against San Marino stood out the most because we were full of intensity. Everyone was hitting so that pumped us up even more.” Altogether, junior Karly Gills believes that “every girl on the team did something to contribute to the win” from their unshakable defense to their competitive outlook, giving them the “overall advantage”. As a result, the girls finished strong with a score of 19-3.

For junior Deja Westbrook, the game against Temple City High School served as a valuable lesson for the team. For a majority of the game, the Apaches were able to keep the Rams on edge in an intense head-to-head game until Temple City managed to surpass AHS and leap ahead. With a final score of 10-6, Deja added, “Although mistakes were made and [our] energy level was up and down, we still managed to keep up while not playing our best. My freshman and sophomore year we beat Temple City so to lose to them was frustrating because I believed we could have won, but that game showed us that the only people stopping us from success is us.”

In a difficult game against Buena High School, AHS humbly faced the Division 4 CIF Champions, leaving with a loss of 2-10 but putting up a good fight. According to Karly, Buena High School’s team consists of “many skilled Division 1 college commits”, Jenessa Ullegue, a San Jose State University commit among them. Karly also added, “Although we lost this game, as we thought we would, we proved to ourselves that we are a better team than we think we are. It is easy to lose confidence in softball, but this was definitely a game to learn from. Although we are a younger team, we do have a lot of talent, and I am excited to see how we do in league.”

Aside from a few pushbacks, the girls seem to be improving already as Deja assures, “Based off of the games we have played, we have learned that we sometimes struggle with finishing games off cleanly,” adding, “Despite what we need to work on, this year we have a young yet strong and talented team that I see doing well in league and having a successful season. As long as we push each other, compete and have fun, I don’t see any reasons to why we wouldn’t have a great season this year.” Hopefully, as Karly and Deja both expect, the girls will be able to defeat one of their biggest rivals, Crescenta Valley High School, in their upcoming game and make their way to CIF for the second year in the row. Great job Apaches, keep it up!