Swinging into the school year, the Conifer softball team has won 8-7 against Denver East and lost 4-21 against Lakewood, but the team may be unable to maintain varsity status with its eleven players, two out with ACL injuries—filling the roster by the bare minimum.
Following the team’s Elite 8 finish at the 2024 state championships, Carrie Oletski retired as head coach of the team, allowing for the transition to the new coach, Cat Lohse.
Lohse has been working with the team and Athletic Director Bradley Horner since early August to ensure a varsity roster; however, two of the eleven initial players were injured during their game against Denver East on August 19, leaving the team with only the minimum number of players.
“That really magnified the need to add some players, knowing that at any time we could lose up to two or more players any given game,” Horner said.
In the last week, Horner and the team have been making recruiting efforts by reaching out to students, making social media posts, and advertising the team during the assembly on the first day of school. However, the lack of available players caused Horner to postpone numerous upcoming games on August 25 and 26.
“I wanted to protect our softball program, knowing numbers were going to be an issue,” Horner said.
Horner is meeting with Lohse and the team today to discuss the future of the season, either continuing as a varsity team, switching to a junior varsity (JV) team, or ending altogether.
“I’m injured my senior year, which is already really unfortunate, but I also hope that the girls can get the most out of their season,” senior player Giada De Manna said.
If the team continues varsity, more players must be recruited in order to meet the needs of a varsity roster.
“If you have young players who have never played before, what does that mean? Does that mean that we slog through a really difficult season when we don’t have the numbers for some games? It becomes really difficult to be the team that is unreliable when it comes to scheduling,” Horner said.
If the team switches to a JV team, they’ll play fewer games but be able to be more selective in the games they play, allowing for lesser impact from number-related game cancellations. The experienced players would also have the option to play varsity at other schools.
“A lot of the girls deserve to stay on varsity, especially for senior or junior seasons. It’s going to help them a lot if they’re on a varsity team,” De Manna said.
As the year continues, Lohse and Horner plan to collaborate with West Jeff Middle School and evaluate the willingness of potential players throughout the season in order to build a solid set of players going into the next school year.
“A lot of kids on the team are doing a really good job at recruiting and trying to keep this thing together, that’s how much it means to them,” Horner said.
