The Ladycats fell short of advancing to state after a loss to Windthorst in their regional championship series. After winning the first game 5-0 at Graham High School May 26, the team lost the next two 4-3 and 8-0 at Midwestern State University May 28.

“Losing that close to state will light a fire in us to work even harder next year,” junior Erin McGregor said. “We’ll be back better than ever.”

The Ladycats started playoffs with an 8-0 win against Haskell for bi-district. Then, they traveled to Eula and beat Mason in two games, 15-2 and 4-2, for area.

“I expected us to go just as far as last year,” McGregor said. “It just ended a bit sooner than we planned.”

In the regional quarterfinals, the team defeated Petrolia, who had beat them twice in district.

“It felt awesome to beat Petrolia after losing to them twice,” senior Morgan Knobloch said. “We knew it was our time to win.”

The Ladycats won the regional semi-final series against Rawls May 20 and 21.

“Along the way we have only improved,” junior Olivia Kellar said. “And we continued to improve as the season progressed.”

Sophomore Hope Browning said the team will be different next year and changes will be made.

“When the seniors leave, we won’t have a catcher, second base, or first base,” Browning said. “We have a few people coming up and one of them may be our new catcher. Hopefully, I won’t injure myself again and will be better prepared for next year. As an upperclassmen I’m going to lead on and off the field and help the underclassmen with as many things as possible.”