Oneida Nation High School Softball Coach Bradley Skenandore is looking forward to improving on last year’s record.
“We’re going to put a couple of wins together and see what happens,” he said.
Granted, last year the Lady Thunderhawks lost all their games during the season.
“We went no wins all year, but we went from a team that was getting blown out every game to basically losing in a walk off in our playoff game,” he said.
Skenandore and his team of 16 young ladies are focused on the positive. Eleciah Danforth, who plays first base and outfield, remembers the team getting better as the season progressed.
“Each game we got closer and closer, and it was really exciting to get more and more points on the board, and stopping more runs from the other team,” said Danforth.
Natavia Adams, who plays second base, saw last year as a learning period.
“It wasn’t frustrating, it was just a new experience, something different. Just to get used to it, see the pitches, the plays, see everything different,” said Adams. “I’m looking forward to getting closer to wins. Last year we were pretty close, but I feel this year we’re going to be so much better.”
Fourteen girls on last year’s roster have returned this season.
“What I like is they seem to remember everything we started last year, because we basically were teaching all the basics from ground zero. They found out last year it’s a lot of catching up from a lot of the other schools. So, coming into this year, they remember a lot of everything, and it’s a lot of just basically refreshing little stuff,” said Skenandore.
While last year might seem like it was frustrating, Skenandore tracked the statistics from the year before to show his team their improvement.
“We cut the runs allowed in half … and we scored over double of what they scored the previous year, so the stats are there. So now it’s just a matter of coming to the next level instead of being close now we get over that little hurdle,” he said. “We know we can compete now.”
The Lady Thunderhawks will travel to Saint Thomas Aquinas Academy in Marinette Thursday, April 4 at 4:30pm.
