It’s an uphill climb, but Enchantment Little League’s senior division all-star softball team is ready to embark on a trip that could eventually lead them to the top of the world.
Enchantment, now formally known as New Mexico by virtue of winning the state title last month, will represent the Land of Enchantment at the Southwest Region playoffs in Grand Junction, Colo., next week. If they should win, they would take another step toward their ultimate goal of winning the Little League World Series.
“The World Series is our goal,” said Cheryl Torres, one of the team’s two ace pitchers. “It is our goal to get there, but we’ve learned to take it one game at a time. If we plan ahead, we could get to be a little bit too confident.”
One step at a time. New Mexico plays its first game of the tournament at 10 a.m. Monday against the Louisiana state champ. It will play Arkansas on Tuesday and Mississippi on Wednesday in round-robin play. The top two teams after round-robin play will playoff against the top two teams from another pool at the end of the week.
“The girls seem up for it,” said head coach Lisa Chavez. “They want to go on to the next level. They were third the first year and second last year and would love to come home with the title.”
Eight of the girls on the team have been this far before. They were on Enchantment state championship teams that advanced to regionals in the major and senior divisions.
They could have played another year as juniors, but chose to play up a division against older and more experienced teams.
That could be a disadvantage, but it also could work to their benefit.
“The returning kids are going back to a regional tournament with two years of experience,” Chavez said. “They are a young group, but they’ve had a lot of experience playing tough competition and playing older girls.”
Though they’ve been there before, there’s a lot of nervous excitement surrounding the team. “I’m nervous, but I’m kind of confident that we’ll do good. We’ve done good in the past, and, every year, we’ve improved even more.”
The girls are anxious but, hopefully, not too anxious. The coach said they will have to be patient and composed at regionals.
“Our girls are real competitors, and, a lot of times, they’re a little over-anxious and swing at bad pitches. I think we we’re a little over-anxious during district and state. I definately expect us to be more patient,” she said.
Chavez has no doubt the girls will succeed if they wait for good pitches to swing at. “I really don’t feel that there’s an easy out in our lineup,” she said. “All of our girls are good hitters — every single one of them.”
Chavez has two good pitchers, too, in Torres and Ashley Trujillo. The duo helped carry Enchantment through the playoffs and to the state title. And they’ve stayed sharp since then. “They’ve both playing summer ASA ball, and they’ve both been pitching very, very well,” the coach said.
With the rules as they are — a day of rest is required if a pitcher throws five innings or more in one day — Chavez hopes to get complete games from both, though she doesn’t know who will start the first game. “It’s kind of hard to say,” she said. “It just depends on what the competition looks like.”
Maria Sedillo and Martina Chavez could be used in relief, she said. And the coach won’t hesitate to juggle the lineup to take advantage of a hot bat.
The coach said the team has been focusing on fundatmentals in practice this week. Sometimes, the little things make the biggest difference.
The team will practice for the last time before the tournament on Saturday. Taking the uphill climb one step at a time, they’ll begin focusing on beating Lousiana after that.
“We basically have to win the first game,” the coach said.
(Tony McClary contributed to this story.)
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April 18, 2024
