Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
PORTALES — Eastern New Mexico’s softball team will head to Albuquerque for its season opener against Fort Lewis (Colo.) this weekend with some uncertainty. And it goes beyond the basic question of how the Greyhounds will do this year.
First-year head coach Kira Zeiter said Monday that her starting lineup wasn’t quite settled, at least as of the practice that was just wrapping up at blustery Greyhound Stadium.
One thing Zeiter and her team seems certain about is how they’ll get along. There’s chemistry among teammates, chemistry between the team and its new coach.
“We jelled, like, within the first week,” junior catcher Samantha Brockman said. “I already consider us family.”
A family that quickly accepted Zeiter as its new matriarch.
“I feel like it’s been as smooth as it can be,” Zeiter said of her replacing Katie Welborn as head coach in the offseason. “Everyone’s been very welcoming, from the ENMU staff to the community.”
Zeiter, originally from Arizona, played both corner infield positions at Adams State University in Colorado — the second of her team’s two opponents in Friday’s season-opening tournament — then later served as an assistant coach there. She has coached at Urbana University in Ohio and Fort Lewis, her team’s first opponent on Friday.
And now Zeiter is in Portales, hoping to bring a new spark to the Eastern softball program. So far, it seems she’s been successful.
“Oh, I think the team fell in love with her as soon as we met her,” Brockman said. “She’s brought a whole new outlook on softball ... made it, instead of a job, something we love to come out and do.”
Perhaps not as much in Monday’s nippy weather, but generally speaking there’s a new fresh-air kind of feeling around the softball team.
But fresh air doesn’t win games or LSC championships. Zeiter will try to fit together the best possible unit, do some mixing and matching, give the Greyhounds their best chance at contention. She looks at her roster and sees plenty of options, lots of talent and depth.
“We have a little bit of everything across the board,” Zeiter said. “What’s nice is there’s always something to turn to ... there’s always something that will be working that day. We have speed and power and consistency. And I think those three things are what you need to go through the ups and downs of a 50-plus-game season.”
And, Zeiter says, because of that depth and versatility, there’s no one player that stands out.
“Honestly,” she said, “this may sound silly, but they’re all key players. I don’t want to sound cliche, but in the game of softball today, your team has to be strong all the way through. That’s something that we really focus on here, the word ‘team.’”
They’ll need that buy-in attitude and the good chemistry to rebound from last year’s 18-34 season that included a 4-20 road record and ended with a seven-game losing streak. And they’ll have to do it without record-setting home run swatter Erikka Burke, now a graduate assistant coach. Burke led the team in batting average (.406) and homers (15) last season.
Among the good news is the return of outfielder-pitcher Jennifer McElroy, who was the Greyhounds’ RBI leader (36) and posted their second-highest batting average (.351) as a freshman last year.
Brockman hit .300 with 4 homers and 21 RBIs. But her biggest responsibilities are managing the pitchers from behind the dish and serving as one of the team leaders.
“I love it, I feed off of it,” Brockman said of her leadership role. “And I like to think the team feeds off of it. I’m one of the loudest on the team, so it’s an easy role to fill.”
Another returner is alliteratively-named senior infielder Lauren Likes, who hails from alliteratively-named Walla Walla, Washington. She appeared in just 10 games last year and started only seven of them, but made something of her opportunities by batting .273.
Returning infielder Elysa Rodriguez was 6-of-6 stealing bases as a sophomore last year. The other returnees are: seniors Kimberly Herron (pitcher), Emma Gary (outfielder/pitcher), Hanna Gary (pitcher/outfielder) and Karina Moreno (infielder); junior Precious Aguirre (infielder); and sophomores Kayla Marshall (outfielder) and Parker Smith (catcher/outfielder).
It’s a fairly young team, but one optimistic of improving on last year.
“I think we can easily go past .500 for our record,” Brockman said. “We need to know these big-name schools (on the schedule) are just names.”
“I’m excited to see what they’re going to do,” Zeiter said. “I’m excited to get them out there against quality competition. They seem hungry, they’re excited for it.”