This season for Freedom softball was much different from years past. Whether it be in the win column where the lady bulldogs’ nine wins were a major step up from the win totals of years past, or the positive attitude that the wins conjured from this team that wasn’t present in past teams.
“This year the team was than it has been the past three years and there was more of a togetherness throughout the team. I think that team unity helped us win the section games that we did,” Senior Hannah Leonberg said.
Although the softball team may not have always played up to the level they expected from themselves they did finish with a 4-8 record in section play which was good enough for fifth place in a section that produced three playoff teams including the overall number one seed in AA: Burgettstown.
“I think the attitude changed a lot from last year to this year. Last year, we knew that we had a lot of good freshmen coming up to play with us next year. That helped this year’s attitude because we knew that those good players were up here playing with us and they were going to put in the effort in order to get us wins,” Sophomore Haley Velemirovich said of what changed between last year and this year to help this team have a more successful season.
This talented group of freshmen went through many ups and downs throughout the year as they had their successes and struggles in their first year of varsity level softball.

“For my first season, I think we played very well for being a relatively young team. We had our ups and downs, but overall, it was a great season,” Freshman Jenna Engel said. Engel and her fellow freshmen led the team across the board as statistics go. Offensively Freshman Trisha Speicher led the team in both hits and extra base hits as well as finishing tied with Leonberg for the most RBIs. Pitching wise, Freshman Madison Slowinski leading the team in innings pitched and ERA. Although many of the freshmen led the team in various categories their inexperience did shine through at times as the Freshmen committed a total of 38 errors as a whole throughout the course of the season.
Although the freshmen struggled at times there is hope for the future of the softball team as these young players have time to figure out how to eliminate the mistakes they made throughout this season. As for this year’s seniors, their time has run out but not before they helped get the team onto the track to success. After going winless in the section for the first three years of their varsity careers the seniors were major leaders on the field and helped this team to win a third of its section games this year.
“Seeing how the team has evolved over the past four years has amazed me,” Senior Kristi Fiscus said, “Going from being the worst team in the section for my first three years to winning multiple section games in my senior year was really cool and I am grateful to be a part of the beginning of the change in Freedom softball.”