Softball Forced to Rebuild

RHS softball faces unanticipated challenges following Metro win

Last season the Roosevelt women’s fastpitch softball team went 13-2 and won the Metro league title, setting them up for a stellar season this year. Yet two weeks before this year’s tryouts, the team found themselves without coaches. 

Senior captain Lauren Guise describes the coaches’ departure, saying that they had called a team meeting early February, but hadn’t explained the reason for doing so. “We thought it was going to be another meeting about tryouts,” she says. 

When head coach, Rob Zahn, and assistant coach, Kyle Albertson, finally broke the news, they told the team that they were both resigning to coach at Inglemoor High School, located in Kenmore. Guise says the news “definitely came as a shock.”

Sophomore player Kiana James says she wasn’t expecting the change either. Explaining her surprise, she says they “were talking about our future a lot.” James went on to say it was “hard at first to wrap [my] head around it because it was super sudden.”

Originally, Albertson had planned to stay with the team to help with the transition of head coaches. Yet the week after Zahn had decided to leave, Albertson texted Roosevelt’s athletic director, Ryan Sherlock, that he was leaving as well, to coach with Zahn at Inglemoor.

Zahn left so he could spend more time with his family. He says Inglemoor can provide that to him in a way Roosevelt could not. He states that Inglemoor is much closer to his house, reducing commute times, and has a softball field on campus that the team can use anytime they want. Zahn states that “having a field on campus made it possible for me to schedule practices that better fit my family’s schedule.”

Even with the sadness that came with losing their coaches, Roosevelt players foster no hard feelings. “I have nothing but respect for [Zahn and Albertson],” Guise says. “I know they had to do what they had to do, for their families. It was the best choice for them.”

Before leaving, Zahn asked HT Lee if he would coach the team in his place. Lee had helped at several practices the previous year.

Choosing Lee to be the new head coach was the “best decision for the moment,” in Sherlock’s eyes. Lee had great recommendations from other coaches and the commissioner of softball for the Metro league had advocated for his hire. 

Sherlock shares this confidence in the capabilities of the new coaches. “He’s been able to bring in some assistant coaches that I think actually made the staff overall maybe even better than what it was with Coach Rob and Kyle.”

Guise says she was not worried about the future of the team, putting her faith in them, saying “We’ve been able to build up a pretty strong foundation.” She continues by saying she thinks the seniors and juniors on the team provide strong leadership to the younger players.

This foundation might provide the stability needed to get the players through this transition. “We still have the same goals and the same motivation,” she says. “It’s just kind of with a different set of coaches.”

Not only did the old coaches move on from the team and their seniors, but they also left them with a packed schedule. With 11 games in the first 14 days of the season, the team will not only have fewer practices during the first two weeks of their season as a result, but the tight schedule will also force many team members to choose between softball and school.

Among athletes on the team, the high number of games is causing apprehension regarding their academic success, especially for those who have difficult 5th or 6th periods. 

When asked about such rising concerns, Sherlock says, “It puts them in a hard spot because they want to play their sport, they love their sport, they have passion about it, but they also feel an obligation, of course, to their academic success and you know their overall future.”

Senior varsity player Emma Lentz says that to deal with missing class, she keeps up by talking to her teachers and friends that she shares classes with. “It’s been a little bit stressful,” she says, but acknowledged that she knew playing softball would take up time she normally used to do homework. 

Guise explains why this packed schedule was so difficult to deal with. She says it was tough because “we have games after school, so that’s like cutting away from time to do homework and get caught up on what you’ve missed in class.”

Despite Roosevelt softball winning Metros last year, the team was unable to move on to state due to COVID-19. Sherlock says that this year “Roosevelt softball has the opportunity to do something they’ve never done before ever, which is go to state.” Yet he also shares his worries over the potential for the sudden coaching change to impact the team, saying, “I hope that this transition between coaches doesn’t hamper or affect that.”

With new coaches who don’t know the players or the groove of the team and a busy schedule, the softball team faces an uphill battle. A question is posed to the team: can Roosevelt softball pick up where they left off, or will they be starting from square one this season?