“Top of the lineup! Hey! Top, top, top of the lineup! You know it!” The chants in unison cheering for the lead off big hitter, Hannah Ortiz, motivated her to hit a line drive to the center of the field for a double, on her senior night, which later on she would score. The lady Generals softball team this year will not be forgotten.

Although the team is only made up of eleven players, seven of them are seniors. With a first year head coach in Alfred Dobson, the senior lady Generals carried the load this season. Senior, Alexa Lucius, was the star pitcher for UACHS and she pitched almost every game with her backup pitchers being Jasmine Cabral and Melonie Johnson.

Lucius believes that she personally overcame a lot this season and really learned the true values of teamwork. Pitching was something that always got her nerves and the fear of it was something she had to work on. 

“Something I overcame during this season was being scared on the mound and not being able to communicate with my teammates properly so that we could work together effectively,” said Lucius. “Softball is a team sport and you cannot rely on just yourself to win a game.”

Another senior lady General, Jasmine Cabral, agrees and talks about her experiences on the team.

“My favorite highlights of the season were all of the games and practices as we figured out how to work as a team,” said Cabral. “You could tell as we got more connected that we would start playing with each other more and we would start to win games.”

Cabral believes that in softball mistakes happen. She learned over the course of the season how to deal with these mistakes instead of letting it eat at her.

“I would get in my head a lot when the season first started about little mistakes, but as time went on I learned to not overthink it and go with the flow,” said Cabral.

While the underwhelming final record of the lady Generals softball team was 1-10, Coach Alfred Dobson feels that a player’s desire to be on the field is more important than the score board.

“I do not measure the wins and losses. I’m measuring, dedication, commitment, and people getting better,” said Dobson. “Throughout the course of the year I can say that I watched my players take strides to get better. I watched them start to learn the game of softball in a shorter amount of time.”

Dobson only regrets one thing this season. The amount of time he had with the girls. This was such an important thing he missed out on because this was most of the girls first seasons playing. 

“We were playing some experienced teams, some teams we played had been together, playing through the COVID years and they had that continuity, they had those relationships,” said Dobson. “We came together in just four weeks before the first game and just had to play.”

Although the Lady Generals did not get a lot of wins, they shared a lot of memorable moments and they performed the best they could. Hopefully the underclassmen who fill the shoes of the graduating seniors will have learned something from them this season that they can use in upcoming seasons. Here’s to many more great seasons ahead of them.