Softball took their second victory in a row to start the season with a 7-4 win over Minneapolis Southwest. The team was able to get on the board early, putting up seven runs in only the first three innings, and finished it off with strong pitching. The team has had a positive start to the season with consecutive wins and they will have a tournament this weekend where they can showcase their skill early in the season.
According to head coach Chris Gabler, the team has done much better in preparing for the season outside rather than inside, and is ready for the upcoming schedule.
“Getting outside definitely renews the enthusiasm — playing on dirt is a lot different than a gym floor,” Gabler said. “It’s been pretty good now that we’re outside. We’ve had three practices and two games outside, and now we play a lot of games.”
According to junior center fielder and captain Eva Taybior, the team was happy with their win and did a lot of great things that led to their achievement.
“We did a lot of things really well; there’s still definitely things we can improve on, but overall really good,” Taybior said. “We were stringing hits together when it really mattered so we were getting a lot of runs and played pretty good defense.”
According to sophomore catcher Renee Dominguez, the team did well but can continue to work on their chemistry together.
“It was really good, but we can be a lot more energetic on the bench. Overall I think we played pretty well,” Dominguez said. “We just need to get better about communication, otherwise I think we’re in a really good place.”
Gabler said he was happy with how the team played and has a goal of the team making a big run in the section playoffs.
“We played really well defensively and we pitched great. The hitting was average, we have room to improve,” Gabler said. “I expect us to be really, really good — top three or four in the conference, and should be one of the top three seeds in our section. We have a chance to win our section, we gotta play really well, but we have a chance.”
Taybior said she’s very satisfied with the team’s start and has high expectations for the team moving forward.
“We’re starting from a really good spot and we’re two and zero which has never been done before, or at least not recently, so I think we’re doing really good,” Taybior said. “I want us to be at the top of our conference, and I want us to just keep playing hard.”
Dominguez said she felt the team prepared well for the game and is in a good position to continue a successful season.
“It was pretty good. It’s kind of tough with Monday games because it’s over the weekend so we have that break, but otherwise I think we did pretty good preparing at practice,” Dominguez said. “With how we’re playing now I hope we can win our next two games. We have a big tournament this weekend so it should go pretty well.”
The Orioles’ next game is against Chaska at 4 p.m. Apr 22 at Aquila.
