“The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.”-Les Brown. This quote perfectly describes the season. Last year, Arapahoe finished 17-9 which was the best season and program history. While they were happy that they won the most games in season history, they still didn’t make it to state, which was the main goal. This year, they were determined to make it to state. First off, they were led by one of the best senior classes in the state including captains Keely Holt and Kayleigh Krueger. At the beginning of the year, they started off 8-0, and it looked like they were easily going to make state, but they hit a little bump in the road.

They lost their next three games by a combined score of 36-7. In the previous years, the team would’ve folded and their season would’ve been over, but this team was built differently than previous years. After those three losses, they won the rest of their games and swept league play. They were led by a loaded offense where they had 32 home runs including nine from Keely Holt and the pitcher, Kayleigh Krueger finished the year strong with a 2.077 era.

Arapahoe finished the year with a record of 20-3 which earned them the number 10 overall seed in regionals. All they had to do was win 2 out of 3 games in the region to clinch a spot in the state tournament. Their first game was against a scrappy team in Fort Collins. They took care of business early and beat them 13-1. Next, they played Mountain Range who just upset the number seven seed in Chatfield. They started off fast and easily took over the game and ended up defeating them 12-0.

Now, it was time for the state tournament. In the first round, Arapahoe was slated to play Smoky Hill who was ranked eleventh overall. Arapahoe had played Smoky Hill twice already earlier in the year. They beat them once 12-0 and lost once 13-6. They were a tough team that was led by a first-team all-state catcher in Yasmine Ybarra. The game was very close until the sixth inning. Smoky Hill hit a home run to take the lead 1-0. After that, Arapahoe dominated and ended up scoring twelve runs including a walk-off home run from freshman third basemen, Taylor Miller.

This concluded the greatest season in softball history. Even though Arapahoe didn’t make it all the way to the championship, they still made it to state and won a game for the first time in program history. Arapahoe has established itself as one of the premier softball schools in the state and now people finally acknowledge Arapahoe as a softball powerhouse.