Softball Adds Two New Coaches
By John Earp
The Jal High School Lady Panthers Softball Team begins their season at 3:00 p.m. today versus Raton at the Dexter Tournament.
Asked how he feels his team is looking so far, Coach Emmy Lujan said, “We practiced this Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and we’ve got a lot of returners. We have a lot of returners and we have some new or younger kids that we’re going to add to the mix. We’ve got a couple of more coaches than we’ve had in years past. Early in the season, we’ll still have to rely on what we have, but we’ve got kids playing in most positions that have been there a couple of years already. So they understand the game and things like that. As young as we are, we’re loaded with eighth graders, freshmen and sophomores.”
Lujan adds that in spite of his team’s overall youth, he does have some veteran players returning, and says, “Those girls have been playing since they were in the eighth grade and they’ve been thrown into the fire. Time will tell. One of the things that we do have is that we’ve added two new coaches to the staff, Coach Gonzales, who’s been here all year, she helped out. She was the assistant coach in basketball. She played college softball at the D1 level and has a lot of knowledge. I’ve learned that in the last week or so, how much knowledge she just brings to the table about the game itself, softball. We were able to add another coach, Megan Frank, who we added a couple of weeks ago. She actually is a pitching coach and that’s one of the big things that I think is going to help us because we have somebody that understands the pitching side of it and they can bring our girls along throughout the year and help us out with that part. Between those two new coaches, they bring in a lot of the newer age softball, the travel softball and the different things that go along with the new way softball is played. I mean, you’ve got Coach Vod, who’s got a lot of years under her belt and was there with Coach Samaniego when they won their state championship. So of course, her veteran knowledge of what it takes to win one and what it takes to prepare for a state tournament and things like that, that knowledge mixed with all the new knowledge of the other coaches that we brought in is going to be a big factor, I believe, for us this year.”