Blast From the Past Senior Spotlight: Softball

Senior Alyssa Cruz is a softball player who has played for the Lady Warriors Softball for the past 2 but she played varsity all four of her high school years.
by Norah Griffin

Here at Walnut Grove High School we have students that come and go- it's the nature of high school athletics. But for seniors, it’s like leaving a home that they grew to make here. Senior Alyssa Cruz is a softball player who played for the Lady Warriors Softball the past 2 years, but she played varsity all four of her high school years.

Alyssa has been a great part of the Lady Warriors for the past 2 years and made great memories with the team as a whole. Her favorite memory from this season “would be going to state. It was such a surreal feeling, and knowing the whole school was rooting for us really meant a lot. There’s a lot of memories from my softball career that I wouldn’t change the world for, but one would have to be when we played our first game at state. The emotions, adrenaline, and everything else it brought. It was one of the best feelings in the world to me.”

Cruz would rate her 2022/2023 senior season “a 10/10, [she] would say it was probably one of the best seasons throughout [her] high school experience.” Especially when the Varsity girls won the 2022 region 8-AAAA Championship and they “worked very hard for it.” For Alyssa, “having a successful high school career feels amazing. [She has] gotten better and better every year and [is] so grateful for the amazing coaches [she] had along the way.”

But like most good experiences, her time on the WGHS diamond has come to an end but with amazing memories. Alyssa decided to leave her softball career behind in high school. "It wasn’t an easy decision. Softball was literally my whole world, which made that both a good and bad thing. I learned and am trying to learn that there’s more for me in the world than just a ball and a bat.”

She hopes to go to college and focus on a future career in marketing.

Enjoy it and have fun. Enjoy the many poles, long and hard practices, wins, losses, bus rides, etc. Just enjoy it all and take it all in because it’ll be a big part of your life.”
-Alyssa Cruz, Senior 2023, to future or aspiring softball players