No. 7 Hawks eliminate No. 10 Huskies in first round of regionals
The varsity softball team was defeated, 2-1, by Olathe East in their first game of postseason ball. The Huskies finish with a 9-12 record for the 2018 season.
May 15, 2018
Hitting only a mere two hits in the duration of the game, the Huskies were unable to fend off Olathe East senior pitcher Kyleigh Lay. Lay pitched the entirety of the game and struck out 11 Huskies to punch the Hawks’ ticket for round two of regionals.
Sophomore Julia Breidenthal gave the Huskies their only run and a brief, 1-0, lead with a home run over the center field fence in the top of the second inning. The home run is the first for the catcher.
“You know Julia Breidenthal hit a shot out of the park, and that was pretty awesome because it was her first home run as a Husky,” head coach Kim White said. “We’re pretty proud of her for that. I’m pretty excited for her, but when you only put two hits on the board against a good team, that’s tough.”
“I’m just happy it happened in the last game, and that all of my teammates supported me,” Breidenthal said, “so it felt really good.”
The Hawks responded to the Husky lead by scoring two runs on a walk by junior pitcher Abby Bishop and an outfield error. The Huskies were unable to rally off a single hit following the second inning defensive woes.
“I think the riseball was really getting us, but we really just didn’t have timely hits when we needed them,” junior shortstop Haley Shin said. “We had a lot of consecutive strikeouts which really cost us.”
With none of the varsity roster graduating this year, Shin said this loss will fuel next year’s team.
“We definitely weren’t expecting to lose,” Shin said. “We wanna obviously improve on our record, but also just improve on a lot of the close games we had and the little things. I think that we’re just gonna use this loss as motivation for next year.”
White commended her team’s positivity throughout the season, and said they will use this year as a building block.
“This season for us is a huge building block for next year,” White said. “We don’t graduate anybody, so all those close games that we had this year, next year we win because of the experience they had. You know a year from now that ball rolls our way.”
