By Clara Moffitt

“Good eye, good eye, good eye,” girls cheer from the dugout on their first game of the Junior High softball season. On Nov. 9, 20 girls marched onto their home softball field at Daley Park waiting to see what lies ahead. That was: drills, running, throwing, running, catching, running, and most importantly, teamwork. Coach Lane Waddell often times comments on teamwork and how it is the only way that we can be successful.

In its first game of the season, TPA softball played Northwest Christian. After a long and tiring game in which the girls fought their hardest, we lost by one. The final score was 8-9. The entire Junior High softball team would agree that we all worked our absolute hardest.

Our pitcher, Lexi Reis-Ximello says,” Our fielding was great! [Fielding] means that we could get the ball when it came to us and the fact that we had many new players was good.”

The second game of the season was against Fountain Hills. The game ended with TPA down 18-0. Lexi says, “I think that we did OK overall because it was a better team and we didn’t really know what they were going to be like, and I think that … we should work more on [our skills].”

Everyone on the team would agree that we tried our best at the first game, but could have worked harder during the second game. Coach Waddell says that, “As long as you can walk out of a game saying ‘I tried my best,’ I don’t care what the scoreboard says.”