Softball: Hawks Lose to Sealy but Future is Bright

Sophomore Marley Carrizales was a frequent flyer on the base paths this past season. (photo by Karen Holmes)

The CL Softball Team were swept by Sealy last week ending their season after climbing to the highest perch after bowing out as an Area Finalist, 3-0.

   What a Year Hawks, Congrats!

Softball now has competed in the post-season 3 times and for their 2nd time in as many years as they will look to continue this climb. This Hawk team will be replacing two Seniors when they put on their gloves to start again next season.

This is a very young CL group of ladies after doing some math, you will realize just how loaded this group of players are and how they might be poised for bigger goals.

The Lake will have just one Senior this next season, so realizing that after losing two and then just one senior for next season can show a team, that was playing with just 3 girls from those upper grades. Go to those 5A and 6A schools and this situation would be reversed.

Those larger programs might have one freshman and two sophomores, but at Canyon Lake, you are predominantly playing with a large contingent of younger players with a few upper classmen.

Now, the Seniors lost were valuable having Adriana Zunker holding down 2nd base for the past two seasons and Maggie Banks who played a decent third base when she was not in that circle pitching.

That Junior mentioned earlier? Bailey Bryan was the team’s MVP without any doubt after compiling a list of numbers that have never been produced in CL’s first 10 years of existence.

A good line of accomplishments for Bryan this season:

                                 Based Season All-Time Stats (The Top 3)

        Batting Average                   Hits                         Runs
        Bailey Bryan        .551   2018   Carley Dubois     51  2016   Alexis Robinson  40   2014
        Marley Carrizales   .542   2018   Bailey Bryan      43  2018   Bailey Bryan     37   2018
        Marley Carrizales   .531   2017   Kelsey Ahrens     39  2013   Carley Dubois    37   2016

        Runs Batted In (RBI)              Base on Balls                Home Runs
        Bailey Bryan          42   2018   Brianna Young     24  2013   Bailey Bryan      9   2018
        Brianna Young         33   2014   Alexis Robinson   24  2014   Alexis Robinson   5   2014
        Alexis Robinson       32   2016   Bailey Bryan      21  2018   Maddy Puente      4   2017

        On Base Percentage                Slugging Percentage
        Marley Carrizales   .673   2017   Bailey Bryan    .974  2018
        Kirsten Jones       .672   2015   Alexis Robinson .966  2014
        Bailey Bryan        .663   2018   Missy Romero    .821  2012

Those stats do not include Bryan’s assists added up after throwing out base runners, most notably at home plate.

  Way to Go Hawks!!  Congrats!!

Even with one Senior on next year’s roster, that young lady, will be a great leader for those younger players to look up to….literally.

Those top 3 names mentioned above had other returning players coming back for more and being a year older. That is the key, is having these players with another year of experience ready to see what can be accomplished.

To give you an idea of how a player can improve from their Sophomore season to Junior campaign can be visualized in using Bryan’s improvement from these two years.

                           ab   runs   hits   rbi  2b  3b  hr  sb    ave. 
    Bailey     Sophomore   71    30     29    26    4   1   1   9   .408
    Bryan      Junior      78    37     43    41    6   0   9  14   .551
    Increase/Decrease      +7    +7    +14   +15   +2  -1  +8  +5  +.143

What a difference a year can make and if The ReSporter took this to Bryan’s Freshman campaign, those differences would show an astronomical plusses.

Don Chente says Way to Go Lady Hawks!

A good crew of Freshman will be ready to keep this stream of athleticism and then a good crew of Sophomores that might have Canyon Lake going further with the sky being the limit.

Yes, a loss to a Sealy team that was peppered with 11 Juniors and Seniors on their roster compared to 3 for The Lake can make the Hawk Nation ready to see their next season unveiled for more firsts.

Now some words from some of those future players that will be ready to unleash their season in 9 short months.

“Next year, I think we will come out stronger,” Centerfielder Bryan said as she commented on how this past season had CL starting with an 0-8 record. “We will still need to fill our lost Seniors and those three spots the best we can.”

Marley Carrizales was also optimistic, “I thought we did pretty good this year and next year we will come out stronger because we are so young.”

“This was a fun year fighting it out till the end,” Maddy Puente said in retrospect. “We are going to make it further next year and we will never give up.”

Those three players will be grouped with 8 returning players and you can see what could be in store for an improving season.

North Shore Pharmacy says Way to Go Hawks!!

Head Coach John Gallagher responded when asked about this past season and if he would carbon copy that same type of schedule for next year.

“We had a very successful year,” Gallagher finished. “I think our schedule helped us without a doubt.”

Now the stage is set with just a few replacements and another year of improving that all important Softball IQ.

Go Hawks!!