Spring sports at Hastings are officially over, and many teams experienced successful seasons—records were broken in baseball, golf came in second place in the league—but one team that truly stood out is the varsity softball team.
I was able to talk to Athletic Director Andrew Wendol as well as senior and veteran softball player Sabine Hinkaty, to learn more about this team.
When asked what he thought about this team, Mr. Wendol said that “they work hard, and they are good kids who are dedicated to the sport. It’s a great group of girls.”
He also added that whenever he went to see a game they were a lot of fun to watch, and that he always looked forward to going to games.
It’s no surprise that these games were so enjoyable as this team had an extremely successful season. They went 14-7, which is the best record head coach Degnan has had in her ten years of coaching the softball team.

Hastings beat Edgemont in the first round of the playoffs, but then suffered a loss in round two. Despite losing, Wendol described it as a “fantastic game, where the players gave it all they got”.
Wendol told me that it was truly amazing that this team experienced success even with all the challenges they faced.

For a majority of the season right field was damaged due to a mudslide. It was closed off and everytime someone would hit it there it would be an automatic double. Hinkaty described it as “inconvenient”. In the end they were able to get past it. Wendol said that this showed that “They can overcome anything”.
Along with the issues in right field, weather was terrible for a majority of the season. Wendol said that it was the “Worst spring[weather wise] I have ever had to deal with in 25 years of my experience in athletics”. Even with the horrific weather that put a damper on every team’s season, this team did very well.
Along with winning a multitude of games, Hinkaty told me that this team had a very positive environment where “everyone was close”. The team did many team- bonding activities, and Hinkaty told me that she “will miss the girls just as much as I miss[she misses] the sport”.
The fact that everyone was close aided them in tough situations. “There were some games where we couldn’t get the bats going but we were always able to pick each other up”, Hinkaty said.
Wendol told me that there were several awards given to players this year. “A few players were given all-league and Catie Cho was given All-section which is a very high honor”. Senior Mae Rooney also had her 200th strikeout this year and was nominated for lohud player of the week.

This was truly a great year for softball, but Mr. Wendol said that this success is not ending anytime soon as he believes this team is “only getting better”. Since adding Mr. Adipietro as an assistant coach this year “the numbers only seem to start growing” Wendol said.
And despite losing seniors Wendol told me that there is a very large 7th and 8th grade softball population that have kids with “a lot of talent”. Wendol even went as far to say that “softball will be one of the top sports that we have here at Hastings High School”.