photos courtesy of Karissa Hatchell and Rachel Graham

The Lady Reds Softball snatched the runner-up title in the CHSAA State Championships softball game when they lost 7-5 to Strasburg on Oct. 25. Eaton was the dark horse who bounced back from a 18-3 loss to Sterling before the tournament on Oct. 17. The Reds followed that loss with three victories to face-off with Strasburg in the finals.

Seventh seat position before the weekend and Cedaridge victory

Varsity catcher Karissa Hatchell (17) said, “We went into the weekend just super excited with our seed, we got the seventh seed, and it just was a really good position to be in. The bracket was in our favor.” In the first round of the tournament, the Reds came back from being down 12-6 in the fifth-inning (scoring eight runs in the bottom of the fifth and sixth innings) to grab a 14-12 triumph against Cedaridge. Once Cedaridge took the lead, Hatchell said, “That’s when we realized we have to start fighting for this.”

La Junta Triumph

Then Eaton continued on to wallop La Junta, the 2014 defending champions, 8-4, after being behind 4-1 in the third-inning of the quarterfinals on Oct. 24. The Reds then continued the underdog trend by going from a 5-1 deficit to Sterling in the fourth-inning to squeaking out a very timely 6-5 win in the final four on Oct. 25. Hatchell said, “We went out with a bang, played an amazing game, and everyone had each other’s back.” The Reds went into extra innings to trump Sterling by one run.

Pitchers Graham and Frink lead team to success

Rachel Graham (17) pitched against La Junta and Sterling. Graham started pitching against Cedaridge, but Lauren Frink (19) came in to finish the game. Graham also started the Strasburg game, but Hatchell said through “pitching the previous three games she had just been so tired. She started really well in the Strasburg game, then she lost her groove because she was super tired, but she did amazing.” Frink finished the Strasburg game as well.

Strasburg match-off in the finals

The three victories all accumulated for the Eaton versus Strasburg match-off for the state champs title. Hatchell said the Strasburg game with both a win and a loss because “it was a win in our book since we made history. The 2015 softball team did something no other softball team here had done. That’s just an accomplishment within itself. Even though it was a loss, we fought ‘til the end. Even in the seventh-inning we scored two more runs. The whole team just put up a huge fight.”

Lady Reds continue on 1999 legacy

Although the Lady Reds lost to Strasburg, the team made it further in the state tournament than Eaton softball has since 1999, when the Lady Reds made it to the final four. Hatchell said, “that was like our big motivation, throughout the whole week of practice we had the 1999 banner up and we all wrote 1999 on our hands.”

Coach Shaw feels accomplished

Ending the season as runner-up champs coach Chad Shaw said he feels “accomplished because of all the time and effort and energy it took to get them to understand that they were good enough. The hardest thing that we had to combat all season long was not necessarily getting them to physically do a good job but to mentally understand they were as good as anyone else. To believe. Seeing them put that together for two straight days and four games, to play with so much confidence and so much heart, [I felt] accomplished. To be honest, as a coach, I didn’t know how to get them mentally in these games until probably this weekend. I figured out that this group of 18, 19 girls needed to calm down and believe and just think positively and as a team.”

Shelden agrees with Shaw

Varsity player Halie Shelden agreed with Shaw. She said, “Making it to the finals was the best feeling ever for each of us. We worked as a team to get there. We battled through everything.”

2015 softball season

The Shaw said the 2015 season was overall about “two things. Number one, as far as the goals we set this season, this team far exceeded what we thought they could. We knew that they were good, so we thought final four would be what this team could attain. And hopefully it would be even more. They far exceeded any and all expectations we had for them. [I was] more than pleased. The second thing is that now they have gotten there, the challenge is to keep that same mental focus in order to continue getting into the state tournament, first and foremost, and then getting into the final four and even into the final. I’m not saying that we will, but you have to have the expectation and thinking that you can and that you have the ability to.”

Hatchell says thanks

Similarly, Hatchell would like to say “thanks to the coaches for making it a good season.”