Queen's softballers complete unbeaten season

The Queen's High School softball team that went unbeaten through the 2016-17 season. Back row (from left:) Emilia Farquahar, Lily Cook-Bonney, Arabella Thomlinson, Jodi Loffley (manager), Jasmine Saunders, Denise Anderson (assistant manager), Lani Kalolo,
The Queen's High School softball team that went unbeaten through the 2016-17 season. Back row (from left:) Emilia Farquahar, Lily Cook-Bonney, Arabella Thomlinson, Jodi Loffley (manager), Jasmine Saunders, Denise Anderson (assistant manager), Lani Kalolo, Darcy Hunt-Murphy, Wendy Farquhar (assistant coach), Shavaughn Keelan, Heaven Samson-Loffley, Richard Farquhar (coach). Front row: Caitlin Harris, Reana Shand, Sam Bryan, Zhia Mowat, Terena Ramsay and Kacey Farquhar. Photo supplied.
The Queen's High School softball team has come a long way in recent years.

After a period of not having a team, it has built back up over the past four years and has just completed an unbeaten season.

Playing in the mixed secondary schools' competition, the team drew its first game against Otago Girls' High School, before winning every other game.

Queen's was able to beat Otago Girls' in the school's second meeting.

However, the girls schools were forced to share the title due to an incomplete second round of competition.

That had not taken away from the success of the season though and coach Richard Farquahar had told the players to hold their heads high.

''I'm just absolutely stoked for the girls,'' he said.

''Basically, the core of this team has been together for about three years now.

''They work really hard, they come up against mixed teams where there are guys that can obviously hit the ball a lot further.

''That's one of the things we've really worked on with the girls. If they're going to hit the ball, hit it hard. And these girls have really stood up and taken ownership of that.

''They've been able to compete with the mixed teams in the competition as well as the other girls teams.''

The team had a New Zealand representative in Heaven Samson-Loffley, as well as Otago players Terena Ramsay, Darcy Hunt-Murphy, Kacey Farquahar and Reana Shand.

However, it was the work of the team that had seen it be so successful.

''They work together as a team. For softball it's a team game.

''You can have a strong pitcher, but we don't have one strong pitcher, we have a group of girls that needed to work together in order to achieve what they wanted to do.''

The team had progressively become more serious over the past four years since Farquahar had begun coaching. It had turned up and played well every week and had gained its representative players over that time.

There was a plan in place for the team to go to the South Island championships, where it would get the chance to compete against more girls teams of a higher standard.

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