Things didn’t go as planned for the City College softball team this spring, compiling a record of 11-26-1 after going 6-15 in the Big 8 Conference.
According to the coach, these struggles weren’t because of a lack of effort.
“We don’t have players on the team this year that have played a lot of softball,” head coach Tim Kiernan said.
The Panthers got a very solid freshman campaign from infielder Molly Ryan, who led the team with a .458 batting average to go along with nine home runs and 36 RBI’s in 96 at-bats.
Ryan also was selected to the second team All-Big 8 Conference for her efforts on the field this season.
Overall, the Panthers struggled on offense. After Ryan, the Panthers only produced .300 or above averages from freshman Rebecca Eatough (.329) and sophomore Cassie Towne (.303). Both Eatough and Towne received an All-Big 8 Conference honorable mention this season, as well.
“We just weren’t a good hitting team if you look in the scorebook,” Kiernan said. “(If you) look at how many strikeouts and how many hits we get, we’re not a very good hitting team.”
The good news, according to Kiernan, is a majority of the starting lineup will return next season and the Panthers will only lose four players to graduation.
Unfortunately, they will lose one of their main sources of starting pitching. Pitcher Shasta Hill compiled 54 innings this year and led the team with a 3.54 ERA. While the Panthers struggled, they didn’t lose by more than nine runs all season and lost numerous games by less than four runs.
While Kiernan mentioned his team struggled against better competition and wasn’t pleased with the win-loss record, he did praise his team for something he believes to be very important.
“This team worked hard,” Kiernan said. “They didn’t have a lot of talent but they worked hard.”
