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The Poston Butte softball team enters the 2016 season with the majority of its roster made up of underclassmen, including 10 freshmen or sophomores. Only five upperclassmen are on this year’s team.
Many of the sophomores are second-year varsity players who earned valuable playing time as freshmen a year ago, when the Broncos won nine more games than the season before. The talented group of underclassmen is a big reason why there is plenty of optimism surrounding the team despite the graduation of five seniors from last season.
“We have three freshmen who fill that gap right away,” said Poston Butte head coach Don Baker, referring to the departed seniors’ starting positions. “They have the potential to have even better seasons than those seniors did last year.”
“That already indicates team improvement,” he continued. “Plus with the growth of last year’s freshmen, who are now sophomores and last year’s sophomores are now juniors make the team better in its self.”
The Broncos figure to be a team to reckon with in Division III.
Baker believes Poston Butte’s move down to Division III has created some additional excitement given it’s where he feels is team is more competitively balanced against other opponents.
“This team competed very well in Division II,” Baker told the Ledger. “Now that we’re in D-three we should really excite some people and do some great things.”
The roster in each of the last two seasons has featured only a few club players, which many of the best teams seem to have an abundance of. The Lady Broncos have more this year compared to at least the previous two seasons.
“We went from having four or five club players on the team last season to having 10 club players this season,” said Adam Strupp, the Lady Broncos’ play-by-play broadcaster. “They are still a young team, but at the same time we think they’re going to be very, very good this year.”
“I’m very optimistic that we should do very well in the section,” Baker added. “Our goal is to come back with a section championship, make it into the state playoffs, and make a deep run at state.”
The remaining veteran players who have experienced a couple of lean seasons in their careers are looking forward to having the success that’s eluded them so far.
“We have a lot of young talent and most of us play club (softball) and we’ve played together for a long time so there is a lot of team cohesiveness,” said junior Megan Clark, a three-year varsity player and the Lady Broncos’ most experienced player.
The Lady Broncos went 2 – 3 – 1 in last week’s preseason tournament at Dobson and Westwood high schools. Their schedule moves forward this week with a game at Douglas on Mar. 2 before the home opener on Tuesday, Mar. 8 versus Safford at 6 p.m.
Streaming audio of all Lady Broncos’ games this season is available at www.postonbuttesoftball.com.
Andrew Luberda began writing for Copper Area News Publishers (CANP) in February 2013 after working 15 years in Healthcare Financial Management. Andy covers sports for 11 high schools. His stories are published in Copper Basin News, San Manuel Miner and Superior Sun, in addition to the San Tan Valley Daily PRSS and CopperArea websites. Additionally, he has written human interest stories and business profiles. In May 2012, he earned an AAS in Sports Management at Central Arizona College before graduating with a BS in Communication from Arizona State University in 2014. He and his wife, Kelli, have three sons – AJ, Kyle, and Kade.
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