The members of the Sweet Home High School varsity softball team named Sierra Thayer their Most Valuable Player during the team’s annual awards dessert on Friday.
Players also gave the Hustle Award to Caytlin Gillespie and Most Improved to Mikayla Spencer.
The Coaches Award went to Natalie Thorpe and McKenzie Cochran.
All seniors, Cochran, Thorpe, Gillespie and Thayer lettered in softball all four years of high school.
Over the past two years, Thayer has fielded 31-33 fly balls in center field while battting .569 and stealing 21 bases. Thorpe batted .469.
Cochran took some big hits at the plate, said Coach Shane Cochran, her father, and she never dropped the ball.
“I don’t call the pitches,” he said. “She does. I don’t call the pick-off plays. She does.”
Gillespie made amazing catches at shortstop, Coach Cochran said. Some of them, he thought, would probably be impossible, but she would catch them.
Until this year, that group always played with pitcher Emily Marchbanks, who graduated last year, said Cochran. They’ve been doing it together since age 7.
‘They know the game so well, you can put them wherever you want them, and they’ll fill the spot,” Cochran said. “Those four players, they get to to take the brunt of things from me. It’s because I expect a lot out of them.”
“You ladies that are coming back next year have some big shoes to fill,” said Assistant Coach Steve Thorpe. These four girls not only play ball well, they’re good people.
Earning their first letters were Makenna Melbye, Ally Tow, Briana Hoffman and Britney Zook, another group of freshmen who have played together and have a shot at four letters. Hoffman was sidelined this year but regularly attended except during physical therapy appointments as she recovered from a broken leg. She would have been pitcher, but she broke her leg just prior to the beginning of the season.
“You have an obligation,” Thorpe said to the freshmen. “To do the grades and live right and be successful.”
Juniors Molly Fisher and Spencer earned their first letters as well.
Earning second-year letters were sophomores Madi Barringer and Sarita Zanona and junior Maddee Hawken.
The Huskies finished the season 15-7 overall and 11-4 in league, placing second in the Sky-Em League and hosting a play-in game against Corbett High School. Corbett defeated the Huskies ending their season.