Bears prepared for turnaround season

Things are looking up for the Bears this season as they won their season opener 2-1 against Lakeside Blue Ridge.

A very young Coolidge team is looking to turn things around this year as half the roster consists of returners from last year and the other half are newcomers, most of which are freshmen with the exception of a sophomore.

“We expect to do big, we really do,” Coolidge coach Dan Aleman said after last week’s game against Santa Cruz Valley. “We’ve kind of proved what we can do in the Agua Fria tournament, we took second place against 4A, 5A and 6A teams. We showed up and we played well. I have high expectations.”

In the Agua Fria preseason tournament the Bears finished 3-2-1, grabbing a pair of wins against Goodyear Estrella Foothills and then winning a game and tying with Gilbert Mesquite.

A perk for Aleman this season is that his top three hitters from last season are back in Dani Young, Destiny Joaquin and Kayla Hunt.

Young, one of three juniors on a team that has no seniors this year, led the way with a .435 batting average. Young was limited to just eight games in the first half of the season as she racked up 10 hits in 23 at-bats.

Joaquin and Hunt posted a .410 and .364 batting average, respectively with 16 hits each and combined for 13 RBIs

Another returning sophomore joining Joaquin and Hunt is Tasha Juan, and the other two returners are juniors Nevaeh Quiroz and Marriah Manriquez.

According to Aleman the strength of this year’s team is that everybody has bought in.

“They know we’re young and our leaders are two sophomores,” he said. “Everybody’s bought in and everybody’s got each other’s back.”

So far through three weeks which includes a preseason tournament and three regular season games, two freshmen are already making an impact as Juliana Felix is the team’s second leading hitter with a .533 batting average in 16 plate appearances.

The biggest change for the Bears this year comes in the circle with Saleisha “Slushie” Herrera. Herrera has already tossed 43 innings and carries a 4-2 record with a 4.72 ERA. So far the freshman has scattered 50 hits and walked 17 while striking out 47.

“She’s a freshman, but we think she’s gonna do some big stuff,” Aleman said. “And she can hit. We’re getting her out of her junior high mode and she’s realizing that she’s got to not just throw the pitches, she’s actually got to work her pitches. She’s one of them that just soaks everything in so we have high expectations for her. We think she’s gonna do really good.”

One of the areas where the Bears will experience some growing pains is on the defensive side. Of Herrera’s 59 runs given up, only 29 are earned.

“The biggest thing right now is we’re just telling them, ‘As long as you don’t quit, we’re gonna be fine.’” Aleman said. “Our babyness comes out every once in a while and they kind of slack off, and that shows our immaturity.”

Coolidge will be on the road all next week with a game against Miami and then will compete in the West Valley Softball Invitational.

“We’ve got some pretty strong girls out there,” Aleman said. “We just gotta put everything together and that comes with maturity. We have high expectations and they know that. The ones that have come back, they already know that is going to be a different team.”