Glendora, CA (Softball) -- The Citrus College Softball program returns just three players from last year’s playoff bound squad that nearly upset the 2011 State Champs in the opening round of the playoffs. Despite their lack of experience, expectations remain at an all time high thanks to an abundance of freshman talent that has inundated the program.
“Our expectations are high. We have a boatload of freshmen, but this crop of freshman is deep. It’s the deepest we’ve been from pitching to catching to fielding to hitting,” Citrus College Head Softball Coach Jackie Boxley said. “We potentially have 14 starters. This is the most solid we have been in my eight years here by far.”
The Owls will hope to overwhelm their opponents early on with a dose of fresh power, as they potentially have the big bats and big arms to compete with the best of the best.
“Our pitching is more solid than it has been the last few years, and our offense has some big bats in it. Hopefully they’ll bombard our lineup,” Boxley said. “We are definitely more powerful than we’ve ever been.”
Despite the wealth of young blood and talent that’s breathed new life into the program, the youth will be something to contend with early on and there will be things to work on, including according to Coach Boxley maturity.
“The team will have to take their time and develop into who they are and what they are going to be. We have to figure out what the purpose of this team is, and that’s something we are going through right now.”
“I think we’re going to take a couple of lumps in the early going, but I think as soon as we get in the flow, I don’t think anyone is going to be able to stop these players. Some of them are so fired up, it’s hard to contain them right now,” Boxley said.
Citrus will be tested early and often this season as they boast one of the toughest schedules around. Their out of conference schedule alone features nine teams who qualified for the 2011 CCCAA Southern California Playoffs.
“If you want to compete with the best you got to play the best. My outlook is that we want to take on the top one or two teams from each conference as much as possible. It’ll let us figure out where we fit,” Boxley said. “We’ve been competing with those schools the last few years, and this will give us a chance to jump on some of these teams and surprise them this year.”
Along with their tough out of conference schedule, the Owls will again prepare to take on the rest of their conference mates in the always competitive Western State Conference Blue Division.
“Right now it’s hard to tell how good the conference will be, but I think it will be competitive. We always compete with Canyons and Bakersfield and Valley,” Boxley said. “There’s just a sense of rivalry in our conference that’s been developed the last few years, and that something that I really like.”
With the 2012 season ready to kick-off this afternoon in a triangular at Golden West College, the Owls already have their goal for the year set in their minds.
“Our goal is to learn to play together. We want to work together as a unit,” Boxley said. “We think that if we can learn to play that way and take care of the fundamentals that it’s all going to work out for us, and we’ll do what we want to do, which is take first place in conference.”