This past Friday, the varsity softball team advanced to state at Aurora Sports Park for the fourth year in a row. For the second time in a row, they made it to the final 4. With 64 teams in 4A, only 32 of those teams make it to regionals; after that, 16 of them advance to state, and then comes the final 4. For our golden eagles, this was really big, making it to state for the fourth year in a row. Especially with five seniors on the team the softball program wanted to really make their mark on state to finish off the seniors last and final games of their high school softball career.
The softball team had their first round of state against Berthoud on Friday and came out with a 4-1 win. Senior Makenzie Sias said, “I feel like the first game is always the hardest and most important because that game determines if we are going to move on further into the tournament or not. The first game has a lot of tension and stress and is always the hardest because everyone’s always worried about making it to the next round and advancing further into the competition.”
On to their second round of state, they beat out D’Evelyn with a huge win, 13-5. Senior Tatum Ross said, “Our initial goal for the season is to make it to the state, but after winning the second game, we knew that we were going to the final four, and we were beyond excited. Those two games were flawless. We were hitting, we were defensively sound, and Payton pitched a great game. Going into the final four games, we were excited and motivated. We exceed everyone’s expectations for the team.”
Advancing to the final four on Saturday for the second year in a row, they unfortunately were not able to come out with the win, losing the game against Riverdale Ridge 12-5.
Hailey Simmons mentioned, “I think our performance was actually really good. We have had our ups and downs throughout the season, whether it was hitting or fielding, but we really pulled it together here at the end of the season. We hit pretty well and did not make many mistakes in the field, which really helped, but I feel like we finally started to work as a team. We were all finally on the same page, which is why I think we did so well and ended up making it to the final four. Every other team looked down at us, and we proved that we deserved to be there.”
Although the team didn’t come out with the win to make it to the final match of the state, everyone on the team was beyond proud of the work they put in throughout the season to get to the state. Dufour said, “I was really excited about being able to make it past the first two games. I was really proud of the girls. Losing that last game sucks because ending the season with a loss is never something you want, but those girls played a heck of a season, so I can be nothing but proud of them and everything they did throughout the season.”
