It was a rocky season for Bruin Softball.
The Bruins ended the season with five wins, five losses and no ties in the Pioneer Valley League. Also, according to players, the playoffs weren’t as promising as they had hoped. The team was defeated 0-4 after a few key players sat out playoff games in order to get ready for prom. This year’s prom and softball tournament landed on the same day, May 20. Because some Varsity players opted out, coaching staff needed to pull up a few players from Junior Varsity, players said.
Allexandra Lang, a sophomore, who was meant to be the pinch runner for pitchers and catchers couldn’t attend and was replaced with sophomore Shelbi Beghetti and freshman Alayna Fassler who were pulled up from the JV team .
Most players attended the game, however a few had other priorities and didn’t want to miss their last prom. Team members were upset at some of the decisions but all understood why they couldn’t attend.
“I understood(why they did not attend), but I wish it could have been a team decision has a whole,” said Mallory Borrego, a junior, who had to attend playoff games. “Because of that, some of the players on the team had to stay, it would have been better if we were all in it or none of us in it. Some girls had an out and others didn’t, but we were all trying to get to the same event.”
“I was really frustrated that I had to go when others didn’t,” said Taylor Borges, a junior. “But I could understand why they didn’t want to come to the games.”
“Everyone was pretty upset with having to play on the same day as prom and it was a big controversy with what we would do as a team,” said Kayla Toft, a junior. “ Some of the girls just decided to not attend the game and that was their decision, it was really important to show your bruin pride.”
Softball team captains went to go meet up with the Athletic Director Duwaine Ganskie, but they fell into some complications.
“This was a very complicated situation because we had the team captains and a few other players go to talk to him on Monday,” said Borrego. “He didn’t really help us out Monday… and told us to play on Wednesday and then when we won, we went to Ganskie and he told us it was too late to do anything. So it was kinda frustrating because it didn’t seem like he wanted to help us but I understand that because he wanted us to represent the school.”
“Ganskie was not a lot of help because he did not give us much of a choice to play,” said Borges. “He didn’t really realize how important prom was and how much money we had already spent on it.”
“We were all really hoping that Ganskie could talk to the CIF about rearranging our game day or time to see if we could work around prom,” said Toft. “Ganskie did try to help us by contacting the people that needed to be contacted but at the end it did not work out.”
But Ganskie didn’t feel like changing the date would be beneficial for the team and wanted them to make their own decisions.
“The problem was resolved by the team deciding if that they lost the first game Saturday, they would forfeit the second game Saturday so they could attend the Prom” said Mr.Ganskie.
Although most of the team wasn’t there the remaining players helped out as much as they could.
“I think we played a pretty good game against Escalon,” said Borrego. “They were the first seed and we kept them to a four run lead which was really good.”
“My team really hung in there given the circumstances, I think we fought very hard.” said Borges.
“We weren’t expecting much considering we had to play the number one seed but I think we played hard,” said Toft. “I’m really proud with how we ended the season and being there for each other by playing the game.”
When asked about punishments to any of the players Mr.Ganskie didn’t want to talk about it saying, “any discipline issues are always handled confidentially.”
