Columbine softball excited to defend title in spite of pandemic
LITTLETON, Colo. (BVM) — It will be a shorter season than usual for all Colorado high school teams after the CHSAA released a revised calendar for the 2020-21 academic year earlier this week. Nonetheless, the defending Class 5A state champion Columbine softball team is grateful to have the chance to be back on the field in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“We do feel very fortunate,” Columbine head coach Jim Santaniello said. “It’s better than not playing. … We’ve been doing some summer camps just a few days a week and we can really tell just how excited the girls are about it despite the pandemic and all of those things. We’re really excited about defending our championship.”
The softball season officially begins in Colorado on Aug. 10. It will be one of four sports — with boys golf, boys tennis and cross country being the other three — to take place this fall after the CHSAA moved the start of football, volleyball and boys soccer to March as part of the revised sports schedule that is now split into four separate seasons.
For Columbine and all other softball teams, the regular season has been cut from 23 to 16 games and the regionals have been eliminated from the postseason which will now be a 16-team state tournament. In each class, league champions will earn automatic bids and the remaining bids will be earned through the CHSAA seeding index, which takes into account RPI, MaxPreps rankings and the coaches poll.
Columbine returns with plenty of potential to return to state despite graduating two of its top hitters from a year ago in catcher Ally Distler (team-best 12 home runs) and third baseman Callie Stern, who combined for 81 hits, 60 RBIs and 43 runs scored. The Rebels were expecting to bring back Louisville commit Korbe Otis, who batted nearly .700 and went 24-2 with a 0.91 ERA in the circle, but the pitching ace suffered a hand injury over the summer and won’t return for her senior season.
“Our pitching will be young this year,” Santaniello said, “but they are up for the challenge.”
While Distler, Stern and Otis are gone, the Rebels still return nine other regulars who played in the majority of the team’s 29 games a year ago, including power-hitting first baseman Emma Todd, who batted .424 with eight home runs and 30 RBIs as a sophomore.
“We have many juniors this year and we’re asking a lot of them,” Santaniello said. “We want to find out who’s going to overachieve and find out who’s going to fill those starting positions because they’re big shoes to fill for sure. … We’re not missing a lot of pieces. We just have to find that leadership and have each other’s back.”
Last year’s state title was the first in program history for Columbine, which plays on Dave Sanders Memorial Field, named in honor of the former teacher and softball coach who was tragically killed during the 1999 school shooting. The softball team’s championship was just the third girls team state title in the school’s history.
This season will undoubtedly be different than any other for Columbine and every other softball program just because of the circumstances, but that doesn’t mean the Rebels aren’t ready to build on their historic season.
“I would be lying if I said it doesn’t feel a little bit different,” Santaniello said, “but I really feel that we’ve established a winning culture and a lot of pride and I think that culture really overrides even this pandemic that we’re facing. You just really can’t hide or thwart the excitement that the girls and the coaching staff have.”
