Softball team beats Morenci, but falls in quarterfinal

While the Camp Verde Cowboys Softball team lost in the quarterfinal game against the Mohave Accelerated Patriots 8-4 on May 5, the team still made it farther than it has in years.

“We haven’t had a first-round home game since 2019,” senior Aislynn Mulcaire said.

The No. 7 Cowboys, ranked No. 1 in the central region, beat the No. 10 Morenci Wildcats, ranked No. 2 in the south region, 6-4 during its May 2 game.

In the regular season, the team lost only twice: Once in its third game on March 9 to the Williams Vikings and once in its third to last game against the Phoenix Christian Cougars. The cowboys won 19 games before its firstround win.

The team started its season strong, beating the Payson Longhorns, who the Marauders hadn’t beat since its last state championship win, in its second game 11-4.

“That was also a really big bonding moment for our team,” senior Braden Sapp said. “That’s when we started getting really close with each other.”

While that game was early in the season, March 5, the girls had been practicing all year.

Head Coach Danya Weir runs the Travel Ball program in Camp Verde, which most of the team has participated in.

“Instead of us showing up for open field and playing for three months, all of us have gotten to play the game all summer, all fall,” Mulcaire said.

The 13-member team had three seniors who’ve been playing together since at least middle school. Mulcaire and senior Mariah Munoz have been playing even longer.

“We really put the time into softball,” Mulcaire said. “I think that’s what’s showing today, is all of our hard work from when we started six years ago.”

While having been playing together for so long, and getting farther than they have since they began playing together, Munoz said it’s just nice for the hard work to pay off.

“I feel like it takes a while for it to actually feel like it’s paying off,” she said.

Another highlight of the season was its 4-3 defeat of the Horizon Honors Eagles, which the team has also lost to in previous years.

“We all kind of went in thinking that we’re going to lose,” Sapp said. “We were very humble about it, which, I think, made it stand out a little bit more to us.”

While the team was ultimately defeated in the quarterfinal game, the players have been treating each game as a small part of their efforts to make it to the playoffs.

“Every game’s a small win,” Mulcaire said. “We haven’t had a big celebration. … Every win is a moment, a stepping stone up to state.”

To keep up team spirit and motivation through the season, the players would have team dinners and spend time with each other outside of practices. The players also do what they call character matters.

“It’s something like the school does,” Mulcaire said. “Our theme was ‘the difference,’ and then for every single letter in the difference, it’s a different word.”

Those words are generally character traits, like “effective” or “noiseless.”

Noiseless means “not paying attention to everything going on around,” Sapp said. “Like focus.”

The coaches would discuss who embodies these traits to recognize them.

“Every couple weeks, we’ll sit down and go over [them] together,” Mulcaire said.