The beginning of the season has been a busy time for the FHC varsity softball team, with a tournament consisting of four games, the first game being on Aug 31, then a series of three games on Sept. 2. Three days later, they had a game at Francis Howell on Sept. 5. 

Their first game was at Troy against Winfield, which they played after a series of rainouts and delays. Despite the mud, they won without the opposing team getting a run, with the game ending at 7-0. Senior Olivia Fong recalled the team being excited for their first game, as well as the feeling of the team’s first win of the season.

“We were really anxious to play and then once we got there, you could tell that we all were really excited, but kind of nervous,” Fong said. “We wanted to get out there and see what we could do, and it ended up pretty good. We did pretty well.”

The team’s next game was against Palmyra. This game was close, with the final score of 4-3. Fong was responsible for getting the winning run by performing a suicide squeeze. A suicide squeeze is a play in which there is a runner on third, and the player at the plate bunts the pitch to allow the runner to steal home. 

“It was a really close game, but it was different pitching than what we were used to seeing because it was much faster,” Fong said. “But once we adapted we were all doing fine.”

Despite how close the game was, as well as a different pitching style, the girls recognized the opposition’s weak spot and played accordingly. Senior Kaylee Morris commented on Palmyra’s lack of defense when it came to bunting. 

“We were able to just get a whole bunch of runs by bunting because their defense on bunts wasn’t very good, and we’ve noticed that so we just kept doing it,” Morris said. 

The second game they played on Sep 2 was against Timberland, which they won 14-5, getting them into the championship game. 

“We came out really good. We were hitting everything they were pitching. Every girl would go up and just get on base, and we won that game big,” Morris said. 

The final game they played in the tournament was the championship game against Troy Buchanan. After playing all day, the team ran out of stamina, and lost 19-1. However, the team was not disheartened by this loss, and were very happy that they made it to championships. 

“I think we would have done better if we had more pitchers. It was just [that] our main pitcher was out of gas. She had pitched two games already that day, and she wasn’t able to pitch that game,” Morris said. “So we didn’t do as well as we wanted, but it was still nice to be in the championship.”

Their most recent game was against Francis Howell in an invitational purple out game, as a tribute for Trever Strong, who died of cancer a few years back. The girls won 13-2. 

Varsity’s next game is Tuesday, Sep 10 in a rematch against Troy Buchanan. The girls are working towards playing better to make up for their last game against Troy. 

“I hope that we give them better competition than we did last time because they beat us 19 to [1], so if we could get closer to them and at least give them a better competition, and have them actually compete instead of giving up after a while then that would be fun,” Fong said. 

While varsity was establishing their winning streak, JV was also working hard. Their first game was on September 3, where they won 9 to 0. Junior Marisa Jones was pleased with the outcome, especially with how hard she and her team worked for it. 

             “It was a pretty good game, we actually worked together and we acted like a team. We worked really hard to get where we got,” Jones said.