Even though varsity softball hasn’t gotten off to the start they were hoping for this season, the team is not ready to give up just yet. On Tuesday, March 18, Burlingame took on Carlmont High School in their first league game of the season, losing 10-0 and getting no-hit. The loss to the Scots extended their losing streak to three games to open the year.
Despite the loss, the team still believes they can learn some important lessons they can implement in future practices and games in order to succeed. Senior catcher Kelcey Flenniken thinks that the team has struggled getting into the softball mindset for games. After long days at school, she believes the team can work on shifting focus to the game and blocking everything else out in order to play to the best of their ability.
“I think we learned that it’s really important to stay focused and really be in the right headspace, because it’s such a long game, so easy to kind of get distracted. It’s important that we’re always knowing what we have to do,” Flenniken said. “ I think it’s good just getting back out on the field… getting those reps in and getting those live at bats are really helpful. I think we can see a lot of improvement for the rest of the season.”
Weather has also contributed to the team’s struggles thus far. Canceled practices and games due to weather have proved to affect their gameplay as well. Flenniken believes that because the rain and weather have canceled games and practices, the team hasn’t been able to put up a consistent effort, felt comfortable playing with each other, or received enough time to work on fundamentals, all of which ultimately impact performance on the field.
“A lot of our practices have been canceled because of rain, so it’s hard for us to practice the things that we really needed to get done. To really have that quality time before league games started, so it was unfortunate that we missed out on that,” Flenniken said.
The team played Carlmont twice last year, winning the first game and losing the second. The Panthers will have a chance to flip the script this season against the Scots on May 1 with revenge on their minds.
With the slow start to the season, Burlingame knows they have work to do to make the substantial changes necessary to start a winning streak—and they already seem primed to do so, beating Half Moon Bay High School 11-3 on Thursday, March 20 to bounce back after the loss to Carlmont. Looking ahead, the Panthers will have an opportunity for a second consecutive victory when they take on Aragon High School on Tuesday, March 25.
“We want to just have fun and enjoy it…We want to focus on mentoring and helping out some of the younger girls, so that when the seniors right now leave, we leave the program in really good hands,” Flenniken said. “Ultimately, we just want to enjoy the season… Even if we have those losses, at the end of the day, we want to leave the field knowing that we played good, with a good mindset, that we performed well, and that our team’s there to back us up.”
