March 1 came sooner than everyone had expected for spring sports. Sabrina Dotday and Jillian Padovani are this years senior captains for the Hawthorne High School Softball Team. The other seniors including Meghan Knepper, Ivette Alfonso, Beth O’Boyle, Janine Chillemi, and Chiara Zambon, will work alongside the captains to make this a successful season. Let’s see how the captains feel about the upcoming season.

Our first question was to Jill, the catcher.

Clarion reporter- Do you feel as if winter workouts had an impact on how the first day went?

Jill- Yes, it helped because we were able to work with other coaches, and were able to show the high school coaches how much better we had gotten throughout the winter.

Clarion reporter – How do you feel this upcoming season will go?

Jill- The upcoming season should be filled with a lot of success. This is due to the fact that most of last year’s varsity players are coming back this season, therefore everyone had high expectations.

The next two questions had been to Sabrina, the shortstop.

Clarion reporter – Do you like the new coaches?

Sabrina- Personally, I’m really excited to work with our new coaches! First off, we were successful last year alongside Coach Oliva. With that being said, being coached by him another season is always a positive. In addition to Coach Oliva, we have two former Hawthorne High School softball players in the coaching staff.  They include Nicole D’Ascoli and Mallory Noordeloos. I think this is good for the team because they are able to relate to us, as they were high schoolers who had to balance friends, school, and sports not too long ago. Nicole and Mallory also know the game very well.

Clarion reporter – What are the teams expectations for this season?

Sabrina- This season, we expect to work harder than our competition, in order to win the league! We also expect to have a good run in counties and states. The reason we have these high expectations for the season is because the majority of the starting lineup are girls from the varsity team last year.