Post by CEZAR on Jun 18, 2014 9:26:02 GMT -6
I Reached out to Richie Costante who is the head coach at Montini High School In Lombard IL, and he is also the head coach for the Lemont Rockers 16U RC team.and asked him to share his thoughts about his History making season at the high School level. in his own words.
Our season was a breakthrough season for our program. It started last summer at summer camp. We talked about building off the success of making it to the sectional. We had young talks yes kids who were hungry to redeem themselves. Summer went great and in the fall seeing these returners okay fall ball for their travel teams was great. 5 years ago, my roster of 14 had only 2 travel players. Going into this season, our roster of 14 had 12 that played travel ball. That in it's self is a huge improvement and a main reason we now compete with the best around. As the season approached talks around our program were centered on winning conference, and getting another shot at sectionals. We beefed up the schedule to get us ready for hopefully a deep playoff run. As March turned the corner it was time to get to work. From the first day we were ahead of where we ever were skill wise. We talked about the possibility of wing the best team in school history. NO montini softball team has ever won a game in a sectional. We got on a roll (won 21 of 22 games at 1 point) and went thru the conference season undefeated. We were playing well, but we had a rough week right before playoffs. We lost our last 4 games of the regular season as and the playoffs started we took a much different approach. Our girls wanted to enjoy the moment and take it one inning at a time. We got on a roll and ended up beating the two time defending state champions in the sectional final and went into the Super sectional game vs St. Ignatius trying to keep the great season going. That Monday was a tough day for us as we lost 5-4 in the bottom of the 7th.
We had a great year and had MANY key performances. We were lead on the mound by SCC Player of the Year Lauren Trojnar and got great senior leadership from Cristina Barrett and Sara Ross. I feel bad for our two seniors because we came up just short of what would have capped a great career for them. They helped raise the bar and expectations of our program for kids to come.
We will return 7 starters next year and have 4 other returners who had plenty of experience. This team will go down as one of my favorite to ever coach because they did things the right way. They worked hard, took nothing for granted and had fun. Every day was a good day when you get to coach such great kids and work with such great assistant coaches. Thanks for allowing me to talk about our team. I will never forget these great group of girls.
Richie Costante
