'17 Softball Recap: HCHS builds toward future with talented young team

Featuring six eighth-graders in varsity lineup most nights, Cyclones finish up-and-down season 12-22 overall

 HARLAN -- For a team that lost just three seniors off last year’s softball squad, the 2017 Harlan Community Cyclones found themselves in full-fledged rebuild mode this past summer.
 In addition to the graduation departures of Iowa State recruit Logan Schaben, Julia Sorfonden and Emily Juhl, several other full or part-time starters from a 13-23 campaign elected not to return for head coach Brooke Schaben’s second season at the helm.
 In their stead, a talented group of nine eighth-graders made the varsity roster and joined forces with a small band of returning veterans (no seniors) to form the ‘17 Cyclones.
 The results were mixed, with plenty of growing pains along the way, but the program’s future appears bright and this year’s young squad basically matched 2016 in terms of success with an overall record of 12-22. The Cyclones’ Hawkeye Ten Conference finish, meanwhile, was identical - seventh place with an 8-12 record.
 It’s pretty easy to scan the season results and find several losses that could have been reversed with just one or two timely hits or by taking away a walk here or an error there on defense. HCHS proved it could compete with the league’s top teams - Denison-Schleswig, Atlantic and Lewis Central - for at least part of a game and showed the ability to dominate against lower-division opponents with five mercy-rule wins inside the H-10.
 They did it all with six eighth-graders - sometimes seven - among the team’s 10 starters basically every night. The next step will be developing consistency in all facets of the game.

 
 

 

Harlan Newspapers

1114 7th Street
P.O. Box 721
Harlan, IA 51537-0721

(800) 909-6397
news2@harlanonline.com

Comment Here