Bulldogs softball had highs and lows this year

The season may be over for the Hampton-Dumont-CAL Bulldogs softball team as they ended the year with a record of 7-17, and head coach Kelsey Enslin said that the team had some high notes and low notes.

“Our record was not what we would have hoped for and we would have like to make a further run in the postseason,” Enslin said. “However with that said the highlight for me was we had a such a good group of girls who would come in everyday and work hard and just being around them made it super enjoyable.”

While the team ended the season with a rough stretch where they lost the last seven games of the year. Enslin said that the team had a lot of moving parts during the final stretch of the season and that a positive of that was that some of the younger girls were able to gain some varsity experience.

“Varsity experience isn’t really something you can replicate. So I think one of the highs of that is that we have kids coming back with some experience,” Enslin said. “We also had games where we saw we could do things like we saw we can hit like in our Algona double header and in the Forest City game we started off by scoring two runs in the first inning. We just did not return that on defense. So there were some positives we can take away moving forward.”

Enslins said that during the season there were games where the team was good at the plate or on the field and there were games where the team struggled at the plate or on the field. But she said a strength for the team was the fact that they showed they did have the ability to have success on the field or at the plate. But there is room for improvement.

“One thing I would like us to do a little better is as a whole we had a lot of strikeouts so we are looking to limit those next year,” Enslin said. “Because anytime you put the ball in play you are putting pressure on the other team. If you don’t put it in play you are not putting pressure on them. So just finding ways to put pressure and have solid at bats.”

One thing that Enslin said she would like to see the team work on in the offseason to be more consistent next year is to keep developing their pitching and to to keep working on the basics and working on executing the little details.

There were multiple players who caught Enslin’s attention during the season.

“As a whole all of our kids had different moments where they really shined,” Enslin said. “Charlee Morton, if she is at the plate the game can change in a second because I think she ended with six or seven home runs this year which is a pretty good number and she got first team All-Conference. She is coming into her own at second base. Teaghan in center caught a lot of balls for us and she was really quick at the plate so that caused pressure for other teams. And Addison Aalbers grew a lot this year with just her confidence and she had some really big catches for us as the Algona game ended when she caught one at the fence.” 

The Bulldogs were young this year as the team had six freshmen and three eighth graders on the team and one thing they can take away from this season is getting over the nerves of playing on the varsity level according to Enslin.

“You get a taste of playing varsity and I think it drives them in the offseason with finding ways to improve,” Enslin said. “And putting it as their goal as some of them were already asking about different things for next year already. So just motivating them to get to play at that level again.”