Softball is a similar sport to baseball but has a smaller field. Softballs are larger than baseballs, but softball games are faster paced. Students who play softball enjoy it, and the coaches enjoy seeing their students grow and improve.
During her eighth-grade year, junior Valerie Meraz-Bueno said she thought about playing softball in high school, so she decided to go to conditioning in the summer before her freshman year. She also became interested in softball because her cousins and uncles played baseball. It wasn’t easy for Meraz-Bueno at first because she said she felt like she wasn’t doing well enough, but conditioning during the winter has helped her become the player she is today.
Meraz-Bueno said that assistant coach Mario Remijio has been motivating. “Anytime I need to practice, even on my own, he’s always there to work with me,” she said.
Remijio helped Meraz-Bueno prepare for her tryouts with the team Nebraska Force. He also taught Meraz-Bueno almost everything she now knows. Meraz-Bueno added that Remijio is an “amazing person; incredibly funny, caring and patient. He’s like another father figure to me; without him I can say I wouldn’t have made it into the Nebraska Force team.”
Meraz-Bueno said she has good memories from her time with the team, such as playing in the North Invitational tournament, because even though they might not have won the championship game, “we made it far, and the games leading up to it were really fun,” even when a South High graduate, Yadira Lara, made a home run during one of the softball games and fell as she was running to second base. Meraz said this moment stuck with her because it was a really funny moment.
Senior Esthefany Contreas-Suarez said she became interested in playing softball because her sister would play, and “I wanted to try it out, so I did, and I really liked it. Thankfully, I had a year of playing during high school.”
Contreas-Suarez also played for her assistant coach Remijio in the summer before her freshman year. She was on his Omaha Finest 18U, and it has now been five years. He has also inspired her to continue playing softball and pushes her to be a better player.
Contreas-Suarez said the toughest school she played against was Millard North High School because “they were hitting bombs and were really good at both hitting and fielding.” When it’s a tough game like this, she said she just tries to have fun and make the most out of it. She’s even had a memorable hit going up against Burke High School since she had an old teammate on Burke’s team.
Coach Martin Joseph O’Donnell has coached softball at South for three years. He said he has been “umpiring games for over 10 years, and I coached a little softball in my younger days. I noticed that there was an opening at South to coach softball. I was an assistant volleyball coach at the time, and I thought coaching softball would be a better use of my talents.”
Last year the team was really “competitive in every game which led us to having some teams beat us so handily that they had to walk off the bases to give us outs. This year that never happened,” he said. O’Donnell said he has seen improvements with the team; they worked hard in the off season on hitting and fielding skills which really paid off.
He thinks that his team has “acquired some talented players to add to the good players we already had. I thought they could put together a good season, and they did.”
O’Donnell said he knew they were going to have a special season when they beat Central High School in their tournament. A few weeks later, he said they were runner ups in the North Van Meter Softball Tournament; towards the end of their season, they won the championship of the Northwest Benson Invite.
O’Donnell said he has a message to any girl wanting to play softball. “Definitely come out. Email me because we have stuff to do year-round where they can see if they like the game. I will give any girl a chance and am committed to them having a positive experience.”
