When committing to your high school team, you are more than likely dedicating yourself to something more than just the sport. You give yourself to your team and to your coach.
The softball team has team dinners every two weeks where a family or two hosts a meal at either a rented place or one of their houses and provides food for the team and coaches. Coaches and players refer to the events as “mandatory team bonding.” The phrase is used in light spirits and has become a quip among players.
As much as mandatory team bonding sounds absurd, there are cases where two very different people have been pulled together and now share an inseparable bond.
Junior Maddie Marrero and sophomore Izzy Dennis are both members of the team (RBSB) and have grown to become a really close pair in the two years that they’ve known each other. Marrero, the only girl form her private middle school who tried out for RSBS, said she never expected to make close friends on the team but simply hoped she would.
“I knew that I would make friends since I was going to be with them all the time,” Dennis said, “but I didn’t think they were going to be my best friends.”
Both agreed their close friendship comes from participating in the sport. With Marrero being a grade above Dennis they both agreed that their chances of being in a class together were slim.
“Maddie and I are in different grades so we don’t have classes together, so I rarely see her at school,” Dennis said. “Since we have softball every day, I see her every day, which made us very close, and she had became one of my good friends.”
As the two reflected on the relationships they formed through playing softball, they expressed their gratitude for each other and the opportunity to have such close friendships.
“We got so close we know everything about each other’s lives just naturally, and I am completely comfortable around Izzy. . . I am so grateful for the friends I’ve made,” Marrero said.