On May 8, the Irvington varsity softball team beat Mission San Jose at home with a final score of 5-3.

The game was fast paced, with innings going by quickly. The teams took several timeouts between the innings, which they used to strategize and practice. The brisk game resulted in three outs for Irvington and five for Mission, with teams either striking out or being tagged. On one memorable occasion, the ball was caught by left fielder Julia Matus de la Torre, tagging out a Mission player automatically.

“We do a lot of repetition work such as throwing and catching, grounders, hitting,” right fielder Kayla Malabanan (12) said. “The more we practice, the less mistakes we make in games.”

The team’s training is unique in that they don’t have captains, but rather work together as one cohesive unit. Their practice methods are deeply rooted in repetition and they hope to continue improving until the end of the season, of which there are two games left.

Of their constant and unceasing efforts, Malabanan said, “All the hard work we’ve put in paid off and at the end of the day we scored more runs and made less errors.”

The softball team is convinced that their hard work will continue to pay off.  

“Every time we practice we always improve the little things that will help us in the long run. With 3 games left, we will definitely show that we’re improving, maybe not in the number of runs we score but in how little the number of runs the other team scores.”  said Malabanan.

The team closed the game against Mission with a record of 5-3 and will be facing American High School on the tenth. They do not plan on making any major changes to their practicing style and tactics as of now.