By TYLER HENRY
Lead Sportswriter - Salina Post
The latest installment of our Salina Regional Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Game of the Week will take us to Cougar country where the Salina South softball team prepares to host an AVCTL foe in Newton on Friday night.
The Lady Cougars come into this game at 8-6 fresh off a split with Hutch while the Lady Railers enter at 4-6 after being swept by Maize.
A great deal of uncertainty swirled around this South squad before the beginning of the year, after graduating eight seniors from last year’s state-bound 16-9 team.
Despite all that, a new generation of Lady Cougars emerged and midway through the season the team has picked up right where they left off.
“We told our girls at the beginning of the year that every single spot on this team was open and they knew they were going to have to work for it,” South head coach Brea Vidrine said. “Those battles were good and their confidence this year has been refreshing, but it was a challenge putting together a brand new team.”
While this year could have been a stressful one in Salina, new stalwarts like Paityn Fritz in the circle, and Macy Yost and Morgan Janousek at the plate perfectly complimented a pair of returning seniors in Maliyah Koster and Emily Newman.
“This group of girls has been so much fun to be around this year,” Vidrine said. “They come in, they work hard, and we’re not really a young team but we are a new team. We’ve had players do a really good job stepping into new roles.”
To continue rolling through AVCTL play, the Lady Cougars will need to overcome a struggling Newton squad that has put up surprisingly big numbers throughout the year offensively.
“Newton is going to be aggressive at the plate and they’re going to try to put the ball in play so we have to be ready to roll,” she said. “Offensively we need to stay calm and we have to produce at the plate. Whatever they put up at the plate we need to be ready to double it.”
First pitch of the first game is set for 4:00 in Salina, and both games will be streamed with live audio and video on Salina Post completely free of charge.
The link to the stream can be found below.