The varsity softball team turned to an unlikely group to add to their roster this year: seventh-graders. This season, the team has seen five seventh grade girls join the varsity softball team. Though they are only 12 years old, according to Matula, the seventh-graders bring experience and stability to the team.

Junior Talia Levi has played on the varsity softball team since her freshman year of high school. She said that Matula made a point of reminding the high schoolers that they had to treat the seventh-graders like they would any other high school teammates. This is not a problem for Levi because she finds it easy to get along with the seventh-graders.

Besides the positive social aspect of having the seventh-graders on the team, the seventh-graders also bring experience from playing softball outside of school to the team, helping the team to a record of 2-4.

“They play in all of the games, it’s really helpful for us obviously, because we win a lot games because of them,” Levi said.

Seventh-grader Anna Berger is one of the seventh-graders who plays varsity softball. She has four years of prior experience on the sport, one year from last year’s JDS middle school softball team and three years playing baseball outside of school. She feels that playing at the varsity level is very different from playing at the middle school level because certain new skill sets are introduced into the varsity game such as sliding and stealing.

“I think that it’s not that [varsity] is harder, it’s just that it takes more effort out of you and you need to put more time and work into it than you did in middle school,” Berger said.

In addition to gaining new skills, seventh-grader Abby Alter, who is a newcomer to JDS softball but has been playing baseball outside of school for the past three years, said that playing at the varsity level is helping her to become a better player because the athletes are stronger and can hit the ball harder.

“Since I play in the field, I can field it better, and it’s easier to learn how [to play] when you have a coach who is harder on you,” Alter said.

The drastic age difference between the seventh-graders and older high schoolers is another facet of playing on varsity. Berger said that although she is only 12 years old, she plays against girls up to the age of 18. Despite the age difference both Alter and Berger agree that new friendships come from playing varsity softball.

“It’s a little intimidating [being on varsity] at times, but it’s really fun to get to know different people,” Alter said.

Matula feels that a bright future is in store for the seventh-graders and that their outside experience will benefit the team as a whole in upcoming years.

“As long as they keep participating and playing I think that they are definitely going to make an impact at JDS,” Matula said.