Aliso Girls Softball has opened up its 2023-2024 campaign in style, with the first step of the tough journey ahead being to win the league championship.
Starting the season off was the girl’s non-league game away at El Dorado High School. The game was high-scoring with lots of hits, however, Aliso suffered their first loss of the season 16-12. Regardless, the Wolverines started the game strong, outscoring the Golden Hawks 8-6. Later on, however, El Dorado rallied back, and Aliso could not keep up with the Golden Hawk’s attacking prowess.
A couple of days later, the girls got revenge and evened out their record, beating Kennedy High School in an emphatic win, 13-3.
Lindsey Hubbard (11) gave the Growling Wolverine access to what it’s like behind the scenes for the Aliso Niguel softball team. When asked about how they warm up and prepare, Hubbard responded, “We listen to basically all different types of genres, it’s a mix of everyone. It reflects our culture at Aliso Softball as well.”
About a week later, the girls then played in a two-day tournament, against Chino Hills on Friday, and Gahr on Saturday. Both games came out to be great wins for the Wolverines, winning eight to two against Chino Hills and five to four against Gahr.
Aliso then had almost a week off in preparation for their next home game against Ocean View. With a three-game win streak at stake, the girls managed to extend the win streak to four games, seeing the game out 4-1.
When the girls played against Segerstrom High School, however, the score was deadlocked at three a piece and had to be played an extra inning, to the ninth. Even then no team could score, and the game ended in a 3-3 tie between the two sides.
The next two games were a mix of emotions for the Wolverines, with a dominant 8-2 win against Woodbridge, followed by a close 0-1 loss against Santiago High School. This was the team’s first loss since the close first game of the season.
Aliso was looking to fight back, and got exactly what they needed to get done against San Clemente High School, dominating and kicking the Tritons off of home territory and keeping a shutout 10-0.
Aliso might have gotten a little too ahead of themselves after the big win when they played against a struggling Beckman side.
Aliso was doing fine, going up 1-0 on Beckman, however, the Patriots rallied back to ultimately disappoint Aliso, losing 1-2.
Hubbard had optimism after this game however, stating, “Unfortunately we lost, but I thought our energy was great, and losing is a good opportunity to work on different things to strengthen our team.”
The Wolverines did end up getting stronger, squeezing out a tight 1-0 victory against Beaumont.
Olivia Kuhnel (11) has very positive feedback for her teammates. “We’ve made so much progress as a team and I couldn’t be more proud of us. Everyone has such amazing relationships on the team and it really shows on the field. I think we are going to make it really far this year. It has been an amazing experience for me so far this year and having Coach Baldwin now for three years has been a pleasure. We wouldn’t have any other coach leading the team. Having Gigi Ganje and Taylor Nelson as our captains this year has really changed the way we think about leadership as a team.”
The regular season starts for Aliso on March 19.
