Score this season as a balk or a passed ball?
Staff writer
With only six girls signing up to play, Marion High School will not field a softball team this spring.
That in itself is not exceptional. Schools in sparsely populated counties sometimes can’t find enough students to make a sport work.
In 2019, Peabody-Burns and Hillsboro had to combine softball squads to field a squad.
This fall, Peabody-Burns’ girls basketball team disbanded in the middle of the season after a poor start re-emphasized a barebones squad.
The larger and more interesting questions are why a school sport declines in popularity and what can be done to remedy it.
Marion senior Sara Groening played softball throughout high school, and rec ball since the age of 3.
“I really love playing softball,” Groening said. “I like hanging out with my teammates, just talking about stupid stuff in the dugout while we’re waiting to bat. It’s very enjoyable.”
Her older sisters played softball for the Warriors in the mid-2010s. At the time, Groening said, “there were enough for a ‘C’ team.”
Marion reached new heights in softball four years ago.
In 2021, the Warriors soared to a 21-3 record, winning the first regional championship in their history under coach Judy Noller.
Groening joined the team as a freshman a year later. She sat on the bench. The team, back then, was still large enough to have one.
In 2024, Noller moved to Wichita, leading to appointment of a new coach, Jerry Mendoza.
The roster shrank to 12 girls from roughly 20 the season before, and the depleted squad went 1-12.
“Half the team, it was their first time playing, or they were just getting back into it,” Groening said.
While it was a brutal season on paper, those on the team said the experience wasn’t bad.
“Losing a lot does not bring the energy up,” junior Cheyenne Voyles said. “But I think a lot of us kept a positive attitude on and off the field.”
Heading into the 2025 season, the team graduated three seniors and was expected to field a team of similar size to 2024’s.
That didn’t happen. Only one freshman signed up this spring, and a handful of veterans decided they’d rather go out for track and field.
Stalwarts like Groening and Oursler were left disappointed at their lack of a senior season.
“I didn’t want to end on a bad season,” Oursler said. “I thought maybe things would be different.”
The students offered a variety of explanations as to the lack of willing players.
Groening speculated that an individual sport might be more attractive to recruiters than a team sport, which leading many to switch to track.
This also will be long-time track coach Grant Theiroff’s final year with Marion, which may be another draw.
Cliques also are important, softballers said.
“The kind of people who do volleyball and basketball tend to do track, and they want to stay with the teammates they’ve already known,” Groening said.
There is also no doubt that the 2024 season affected the team’s reputation.
“Last season, with Jerry, we didn’t have a very successful season,” Oursler said. “I think that kind of pushed people away.”
Mendoza rubbed some the wrong way in his first year as coach.
“I never really got to play much when Jerry was coaching,” Oursler said. “I sat on the bench the whole season, and I was really upset about it. I tried to talk to him about it, and he kind of shut me down and told me I’m not good enough for the team.”
Mendoza’s prior experience came from coaching baseball, something players quickly picked up on.
“Jerry was a great coach; he just wasn’t suited for softball,” Voyles said. “He definitely had the mechanics to teach softball; it’s just I think he went about it the wrong way last year, which led to a lot of players not playing this year.
“I had talked to about four or five different freshman girls, and they had said they would do [softball] if it wasn’t Jerry coaching.”
Mendoza did not respond to requests for comment.
Replacing a coach so quickly — as a few expect will happen — may present other problems.
Consistency is key in an athletic program. Groening used the example of a summer ball coach, Reann Buchanan, as one able to develop players over multiple seasons.
Working under Buchanan “was the most athletic growth I’ve had in softball,” Groening said.
Buchanan also coached at Canton-Galva, where she similarly improved the team.
After going 0-2 (and presumably forfeiting the rest of the season) in 2021, the Eagles have posted winning records every year since.
“She brought them from the bottom up,” Voyles said. “And it showed, especially last year, when everyone was like, ‘you should have a chance at beating Canton.’ We got rolled by them.”
Marion baseball also is a program that has benefited from consistency.
Head coach Roger Schroeder has led the program for 14 years, while assistant Jordan Metro has been there about as long.
“They’ve got amazing coaches,” Groening said. “Schroeder and Metro, they’ve built the program so well.”
Voyles, newer to softball than Groening and Oursler, “fell in love” with the sport in 2023.
“As someone who’s struggled with anger throughout the years, expressing yourself in a way that’s productive and helping keep the energy up is so fun,” she said.
A junior, she hopes Marion will be able to field a team in her last year as a Warrior.
Whether that happens could seriously affect her future. Voyles is hoping to get a college recruitment offer in softball.
“I had a couple different colleges lined up that wanted videos sent so they could evaluate and see if I’d have a place on their team after next year,” Voyles said.
Without a varsity softball team, she will have fewer opportunities to show off her skills, although a personal coach and summer ball prevents her from feeling too worried.
Oursler has a different attitude.
She doesn’t take softball too seriously; it was always just something to do for fun.
“I never grew up doing it, but as a freshman, some of the upperclassmen convinced me to,” she said. “The girls on the team were super nice. It was a fun, chill environment.”
Despite clashing with Mendoza in 2024, she went out for the team again this spring.
“I like to stick to things,” she said.
Things change quickly in high school sports, and Marion softball exemplifies this.
It’s hard to find a more dramatic decline than going from 21-3 in 2021 to 1-12 in 2024, then not having a team in 2025.
Things can improve just as fast. But for that, the team needs players.
“Give them a good understanding that softball isn’t just about the game,” Oursler recommended. “You can make friendships.”