As winter sports come to a close, the spring sports season has come upon us and the 2017 softball team has high expectations to meet and big shoes to fill.

The Colonia High School softball team will begin to field its new team on Friday, March 3rd. After losing seven seniors they will have many spots to fill. The tryouts are three days and you will find out if you make the team after the last tryout. In order to make the team you need to: run the mile in under ten minutes, run (everywhere, never walk), and work hard all the time.

Last year the team went 8-16 but they worked hard and persevered throughout the whole season. The team was a mixture of young and old with seven seniors, and the rest of the team being underclassmen. Coach Ann Cyrana, the head coach of the program says “I’m hoping the team this year will be better because there will be more maturity and more varsity experience since last year was a mixture of seniors and underclassmen, this year will be an older team so they’ll know what to expect.”

The group of returning players are a very talented group. They include Jess Donovan, Yami Morreta, Alyssa Gregor, Sabrina Tiseo, Caitlyn Hronchich, Sarah Soos, and Kaitlyn Kelly. Despite being a group of underclassmen they were some of the team’s leaders in statistics. For example Alyssa Gregor was the team leader in hits while only being a freshman at the time. This year they’ll be even better and have improved over the off season. Sophomore pitcher Sabrina Tiseo explains that the team just needs to stay motivated throughout the game and they need to use teamwork.  Tiseo was a starting pitcher as a freshman for the 2016 varsity team and is excited for the season to come.

Both players and coaches alike are happy to see what the upcoming season has in store for them. The players specifically are eager to get back to playing and bonding with their teammates.

 Cyrana has been coaching the softball team since 1993 and is credited with its success. “The most important thing for the girls is fun,” she exclaimed “if you aren’t having fun and you aren’t enjoying yourself you won’t want to be there and you won’t want to get better and be as competitive as you can be.” The Colonia Girls’ softball team needs competitors on their team, as their varsity teams schedule features nine of the top ten teams in the GMC. The first Varsity and JV scrimmage of the year is on March 11th at home.

Whether you’re on Varsity, JV, or Freshman being involved in the Colonia Girls’ Softball program you are guaranteed a few things, new memories, learning new skills and expanding on old ones, new friends and some softball experience.