After over two months of practice, the softball team has started off their spring season with a winning scrimmage against Quaker Valley. This season, there are five seniors and many underclassmen on the team. This is a drastic increase from going from one senior during the 2014 season, to a total of five for 2015. This isn’t the only aspect in which the team has experienced growth; they have also grown in comradeship. With all this, the girls have high hopes for this season.

“My hope for this season is to have a few section wins. I have never won a section game in my whole high school career and it would be great to end that streak,” Senior Kristy Sturgess said. “I would love for the team as a whole to better themselves and work hard to achieve our goals.”

The team is coached by Mr. Bill Boggs and the assistant coaches include former Freedom varsity softball player Ms. Mackenzie Kemerer, middle school coach Mr. Rob Kaufman and Mr. Nick Pertile. This is Boggs’ second year as head coach of the girls varsity softball team, Pertile’s second year as assistant coach and both Kemerer’s and Kaufman’s first year as assistant coaches.

The team captains this year are Seniors Carley Schroeder, Kristy Sturgess and Alexis Shingleton and Junior Hannah Leonberg. The team and coaches voted on the captains at the beginning of the season.

“It was an honor to know that my fellow players and coaches thought of me as a good role model for the younger girls. I hope I can fulfill all the needs of the girls and hope that I can help my team any way I can,” Schroeder said.

What is unique about this sport, is that the team has some practices with the middle school softball team that is coached by Kaufman. These practices help the girls utilize and build player chemistry between upper classmen and soon to be high schoolers for future seasons.

The team has been limited this season by the abundance of snowfall. This has restrained them to the gymnasium, which is also used by other sports teams.

“Working inside is difficult because we are so limited on space. The infield definitely benefits more than the outfield players because of the limited space. We practice in the gym from 5:00-7:00 and sometimes earlier. Another disadvantage is the gym gets humid and hot,” Junior Jodie Willis said.

The softball team is playing in a new section this season and is more elite than the sections from years past. Some of the teams the girls will be facing include Olsh and Carlington.

“I think getting in a new section will be a fresh start. It is going to give us a better outlook on this season and seasons to come since we are the first [Freedom] team to go through this. It is also scary since we don’t know what to expect as much as we have before,” Willis said.

The girls are working their hardest in hopes of a successful season.