Bailey Lotz, a Senior at San Lorenzo Valley High School, rounds off her days of high school, and her days on Varsity softball. Playing Varsity for her fourth year, Bailey is well-versed in the ways of the team and of the sport in general: “I’m really excited. It’s my senior year and I’ve been looking forward to this since the beginning. Playing Varsity since Freshman year has been really cool so getting to the end of that run is exciting. It feels like I’ve been playing forever here. I’m excited to enjoy it.” Bailey’s days in softball go way back, starting at a very young age: “I started playing when I was five or six years old. My sister played softball and with her being my role model, I wanted to be just like her and followed in her footsteps. I would watch her games and see her play, and that would be where it would start.” Being a versatile player, Bailey finds herself able to play all over the field: “My main position is catcher, but I can play pretty much anywhere on the infield. My secondary positions would be third or first.” Speaking fondly of them, Bailey enjoys time with her teammates, as well as her four coaches: “Our coaches are great. They all balance each other out and would do anything for us. Mark Brown is the head coach, Charlie Hensley is an assistant coach, Sean Castagna is an assistant coach, and Kelly Crowe is an assistant coach. They’re great. Mark brings the discipline and has everything planned out. Charlie is our infield coach and the funniest and most caring person I’ve ever met. When Mark gets a little uptight or stressed, Charlie balances him out, and brings the stress levels down. Sean is so funny. Last year was his first year coaching for us, and you could definitely tell, but he meshed with us really well and we know he’d be there for any of us. This is Kelly’s first year, but we’ve all known her for a long time. She’s working with the pitchers and catchers.”
Being a well-known leader of the team, Bailey adds a lot of positivity to her teammates: “There are times when I’m so over it or anytime I’m in a hitting slump, that’s always frustrating. It’s a hard sport. Like I said, it is a sport based on failure and if you hit the ball three out of ten times, then that’s incredible. That means you’re getting out the other seven times, so that’s rough. The failure is hard but it also makes people grow.” She cherishes mostly the people she’s met and the time she’s spent with everyone: “There’s so many people who have helped me and I feel like I can help so many people now and that’s really important.” Bailey shares a comical story, proving softball may be serious, but there are times when everyone is silly: “Being a catcher you’re supposed to know everything and be the captain. There was this one game where I thought we had three outs, but we only had two so I went sprinting back to the dugout and everyone stared at me. My coach said, ‘Bailey, that’s only two outs.’ and I was just thinking, ‘Don’t make me go back out there!’ because it was embarrassing and I was the one who was supposed to know.”
In addition to her immense success in softball, Bailey has much success in academics. Her skills in softball and school have snagged her many scholarships and impressive future plans: “I am attending St. Mary’s college on a softball scholarship and an academic scholarship. The academic scholarship is more important to me than the softball itself. Academics are extremely important to me. I always tell people I’m a Student-Athlete so the student always comes first. I’ll be majoring in kinesiology and I hope to attend med school and become an orthopedic surgeon.” With many skills, abilities, and ambitions, Bailey Lotz will be a role model and inspiration for years of students and softball players to come.
-Maddy McMillan
The Claw 