The 2024-2025 softball season is just around the corner, with lots to prepare for with the new and old players. Goals and new strengths are to be set at the start. The adrenaline of a fresh start fills the players with confidence to push to the maximum.
Sophomore Lily Boland shares her experience so far in her softball career and her own goals for the upcoming season.
“I like the community that we have in high school, specifically, all the girls are nice and we’re all supportive of each other,” Boland shares. “It’s just a good place to be…I think for the team we should do more team bonding and just practice and grow more as a team.”
Bonding with a team can be so important, especially if there are new people. When the team is connected, it can help strengthen the player’s confidence knowing they have each other. Moreover, according to Boland, a good community can be very beneficial for a new season.
Goals athletes set for themselves can pave the way for their season and performance. It helps with the ups and downs of the sport. Without goals, players may often feel lost in what to strive to improve on or learn. Striving and pushing for improvement is vital in sports. It makes you a better player and athlete overall.
In her fourth year of playing, Senior Madison Comer shares her start-of-the-season goals for her final year of high school softball.
“I would say my goal is just to play well,” Comer said. “I want to be a good hitter this year and just build on what I worked on last year.”
These times before the real games start are crucial to go over things and try to improve. With new techniques from coaches and new strategies, the players can enhance their playing tremendously in just the first couple of weeks.
Lucas Yousko, head coach of the Lakewood softball team, shares his coaching experience and what it takes in softball.
“This is my fifth season as head coach, I was hired as the Junior Varsity coach in 2019 and in 2020 the coach resigned and I took over in December of 2020,” Yousko said. “I was a huge baseball fan and I just loved sports growing up. I was coaching baseball at the time and the athletic director needed a JV coach, that was what made me fall in love with coaching again. Softball made it so I knew I could stick around.”
Yousko shares an important motto popular in the softball world. The motto is called Mudita. It means “Taking delight in the happiness, success, and well-being of others.”
“When it’s their turn to go in, be happy for them because you want them to be happy when it’s your turn to go in,” Yousko said. “It eliminates the sad and negative role. I think that it’s a big piece of what we do.”
Mudita isn’t just for softball but for every sport. Cheering on teammates and wishing for them to achieve greatness strengthens the connection between every player, an excellent habit for the beginning of the season to set the rest up for success.
Lakewood softball isn’t always the first sport to be spotlighted, but that doesn’t take away from its impact on Lakewood sports. These girls will show off the endless work they put into their practices and past work from prior seasons.
Something special is that not only is the high school involved in the softball program, but younger girls who aspire to grow in softball can be a part of it, too. This proves how welcoming a sport softball can be with the opportunities for young girls.
“We’ve started a youth softball program that wasn’t around before,” Yousko said. “There are two 10U teams, a 12U team and a 14U team. We’re trying to build the program from the young girls and get them excited for softball and I think it’s working.”
Lakewood softball is up and coming once again. Despite the new season, the excitement and adrenaline never leave. Watch out for upcoming games with the Lady Rangers ready to push to the extreme.
