Despite this week showcasing April showers and changes in scheduling, the softball team emerged victorious in three out of their four games on April 17 and 18. The team started out against Middlebury, falling 9–5 at 2:00 p.m., but quickly bounced back, winning the next game at 4:00 p.m. with a score of 2–1. The following day, the Mules swept the double header against Williams, the first being 5–2, and the second ending at 1–0.
The team, including Kathryne Clay `26, was thrilled with the results of this weekend, knowing their hard work and success from earlier in the season made it possible. “We’ve been ranked for the first time in Colby softball history. So two weeks ago, we ranked nineteenth, and [last] week we moved up to fourteenth,” Clay said. After their games this weekend, the team is ranked number 1 in the NESCAC division.
Each year, the group sets the goal of winning the NESCAC championships, and although that has not always played out the way the team wanted, they feel more confident in their abilities than ever. “[Since I have been here,] each year we’ve come in, like, fourth in the NESCAC and standings…Our mentality is always to win in NESCAC championships, so just always doing small things every day to get better, to reach that goal. I feel like, when we got to Florida this year, which is our spring training, is when I started to realize that we have a really, really good team this year with all the parts to achieve that goal,” Clay said. “We started winning against some nationally ranked teams, which is really cool. And I just felt like whoever was on the field and whoever was up to bat fully trusted everyone to do their job, which is really special.”
Carissa Cassidy `26 also credits their wins this weekend to the team’s unity and faith in one another. “We’ve just been able to have a really strong sense of team cohesion this year. On offense and defense, we’ve really been able to, like, rely on each other in a big way. [It hasn’t been] one single person always getting it done. Like, I think it’s really been a collective, team effort,” Cassidy said.
Alongside their pursuit of the NESCAC championship, the group was also aiming to honor the spirit of previous Colby softball. “We knew that we could compete, and I think it was just a matter of believing in what we were playing for. It was really special, because on Saturday, we were honoring Dick Bailey, who was the [coach with the most wins] in softball history at Colby. It was really cool to meet him and meet some alumni and really get to feel like we were a part of something bigger, something outside of ourselves. Seeing all the support for the program and the lasting impact that it’s had on people over so many years was really special,” Cassidy said.
With the high of their previous wins still in their memory and eight games in the NESCAC conference to go, including those against Wesleyan and Trinity on April 25 and 26, athletes, like Kat Xiong `27, are aiming to continue their success. “[They’re] two good teams, but we’re looking to stay up and just keep dominating. We don’t want to fall back at all. We just want to keep pushing, keep moving forward. We’re really hoping to win NESCAC; we feel like we have a really good chance, which we’ve never done before in program history. So this would just be huge,” Xiong said.
~ Isabella Boggs `29
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