Feature Photo By: Izzy Honey– Lady Raiders throw out a practice pitch. Senior Selena Gochenour received the pitch.

With fall right around the corner and the school year just starting, the softball season is just about to take its first swing at bat.

This year’s varsity softball team is determined to be great. With 57 girls trying out for this year’s softball team, the most of all time, some of the girls had to get cut for the first time. With almost a whole new team there are only two returning seniors, Ally Pacheco and Selena Gochenour, who are the team captains.

The girls this year have a goal to qualify for regionals. “I can’t remember the last time they made it to regionals,” coach Paul Reil commented. 

Though this year’s team is fairly new and young, they are all confident in their skills as a team who will work together.

Captains Pacheco and Gochenour are very excited for the season to come this fall. Pacheco stated,” This season is looking good and I’m excited. I’m pretty confident in my team as long as we work together.”

The girls had their first game on August 19th, 2016 against Denver East at East High School. Going into the game the girls were pretty excited, but as Gochenour stated, “ We have a lot of talent, but haven’t been able to practice often.”

With that being said, the girls came out of this game with a loss to Denver East with a score of 20-0. With this loss under their belts the girls now have a lot of work to do.

Head Coach Reil says,” We have a lot of work to do not only on one play, on defense also. We have a young team with only two returning varsity players.”

The members of the girls softball team competed in another game on Friday, August 26th, against Grand Junction, but fell short 21-2 in a neutral tournament game.