Softball celebrates senior night

By Meghan Foley
Hometown Weekly Staff

Raiders’ softball is in an uncommon position, having only a JV team. With other spring sports being more popular than softball in the last few years, the program has only been able to field a single team recently, creating a group of athletes with varying levels of experience all playing together.

Last week, the Raiders held their senior night at their home game against Westwood. “The game itself I think was one of our best games that we’ve played this year,” said Head Coach Kanee Chlebda. “I was excited today for the last game of the season, beautiful weather, and a great way to honor our four seniors, I think. All of them collectively have done something different for this program in terms of our growth and like where we hope to be in the future, whether it’s … Keira [Murphy], this is her second year and … last year we didn’t have enough people—to finding that she was actually really good at the sport and contributes to the team, to Alexa [Murphy] and Addison [Kane] and Kyla [Ng]—being here since their freshman year and just watching them grow as players as well has been great.

The hope for the future is that we can sustain this momentum and have two teams in the future. I know the youth [program] is really working on developing those players down there and [the hope is to] start to see softball be more of a sport here in Dover and Sherborn.”

Speaking about the JV environment, Chlebda said: “I do think our varsity environment is similar to that too, this is our second year as JV … I think it’s been a place—while kids want to be competitive, they also want to have a good time. So the stakes are low and, you know, at times trying to keep the expectations high is important—but it’s a fine balance and I don’t know where that will be in the future in terms of, you know, the level of competitiveness that we want to be and a level of like fun and carefree. Hopefully we can find a good mix of that, that is my hope.”