GILROY—Christopher’s final game of the season was dedicated to the graduating seniors—those who are and those who will never get the chance to.
After Thursday’s game, the team’s three seniors— Mackenzie Holt, Karli Martinez and Brook Loesch—gathered in the circle, surrounded by their family and teammates. But before the team honored them, the Cougars gave a moment of silence for Natalia Salcido and Sara Williams, their sophomore and senior classmates who were killed in two separate car accidents on May 9 and May 12, respectively.
Teardrops streamed down the faces of a few Cougars, running over the pink and black sparkled eye black they wore to honor Salcido and Williams. In her speech, former Christopher head coach Allison Robinson, who stepped down last year, spoke not of death, but instead told the Cougars to embrace the fragility of their lives.
“As my college coach taught me, and I have passed down to my own players, ‘life is like the game of softball: take one pitch at a time, cherish the moments and always know what to do with a curve ball’,” Robinson said. “These tragic deaths are teachable moments that can be learned from and each one of us can grow from them.”
Though softball was the furthest thing from their minds, the Cougars found comfort in dedicating their final games to their classmates. The May 12 game at Gilroy was played in honor of Salcido and Thursday’s, an 8-3 loss to San Benito, was for Williams.
“With the two girls passing—Natalia and Sara—it was definitely tough on our team, so that threw a curveball for us,” Loesch said.
Martinez added: “You have to bounce back from that, play for them and work hard. You just have to come out wanting to play for them.”
Head coach Julian Santiago said conversations with his team have been hard, but he’s proud of the way the girls responded—especially since half the team is underclassmen.
“(I told them Natalia and Sara) would want you guys to go out and do this. We tried to get through this, but it was tough,” Santiago said.
While the Cougar seniors wanted to end their high school careers with a ‘W’, the team found itself plagued with the same problems it has dealt with all season. Injuries have left the Cougars shorthanded for most of the year, costing them five or six wins, Santiago said. Thursday was no exception.
The Monterey Bay League Gabilan Division co-champion Balers jumped on every opportunity they got on offense and capitalized on Christopher baserunning errors, too.
San Benito led 6-0 before Loesch hit an RBI-single in the bottom of the third to score Holt. It’s that early hole, however, that Holt believes doomed her team.
“We don’t jump in the first inning, we don’t get started quick enough and I think that was a problem today,” the Cougar pitcher said. “Every inning we got a few hits and then none. It was off and on and I think we really needed to keep pushing and pushing.”
Christopher struck again in the bottom of the fourth when freshman Kaela Paredes tripled to the right field corner, scoring Haley Berube. The Cougars added a final run in the fifth, capitalizing on a bases-loaded, two-out situation. Nikki Villanueva hit a sacrifice fly to score Toni Martinez before a Berube grounded out to end the inning.
The Balers added two runs in the top of the sixth for the final.
Christopher finishes its season 11-13 overall, 4-8 in league play and will miss the Central Coast Section tournament.
While the seniors’ high school careers are over, they said they are taking away several valuable lessons from their time in a Cougars’ uniform.
“You have a lot of at-bats, so you can’t get down after one at bat—you have to keep going because you’re going to get beat,” Holt said. “You’re not always going to get a hit, you’re not always going to strikeout everybody.”
