Congratulations to the Team, the Coaches, the Parents and family as well as the schools.
Title IX deserves a hand as well.
Outstanding!
Canyon, SVHS softball teams make history
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It was a historic night for Comal County athletics. On a warm Saturday night in Austin, Canyon High School won a state softball championship. Just a few hours later, Smithson Valley High School followed with one of its own.
Canyon’s championship was the first for the school in softball and only the second in the school’s history, with the first being a 1983 state volleyball championship.
Smithson Valley, meanwhile, also won just its second state championship in school history, as the Rangers previously won the 2001 Class 4A softball title.
More historic, however, was the fact that for the first time since the University Interscholastic League began hosting a state softball tournament in 1993, two schools from the same school district won state championships in the same year.
It was clearly a banner day for the Comal Independent School District — as two of its three high schools won two of the state’s five softball championships, in the two biggest classifications, no less.
The two teams took long, hard journeys to the top of the mountain.
At the beginning of the year, both Smithson Valley coach Wayne Daigle and Canyon coach Kevin Randle thought their teams had the chance to be special.
Did they know it was going to be this special?
Last year was supposed to be the Rangers’ year, but they lost in the regional finals to Austin Bowie, and lost nearly an entire squad of seniors in the process.
They had just two regular starters returning, one of which was all-state pitcher Bailey Watts, and the young squad used its heart and determination to scratch its way to the top, knocking off No. 1 Bowie and avenging last year’s defeat in the process.
Canyon, meanwhile, also featured a young squad with just two senior starters. But unlike Smithson Valley, the Cougarettes couldn’t claim any experience deep in the playoffs. They’d lost in the third round of the 4A playoffs the two previous years and had never advanced to the state tournament.
But with several big bats in the lineup, led by senior shortstop Meagan McKinney and junior catcher Mandy Ogle, a strong defense and the continued development of sophomore pitcher Sara Mireles, the Cougarettes proved up to the task.
Not only did these two teams represent Comal County well, they proved themselves among the nation’s elite. According to ESPN, which will release its newest rankings on Wednesday, Smithson Valley and Canyon both rank among the top 40 teams in the country, with Smithson Valley at No. 8 heading into the state tournament and Canyon likely to climb higher than its current 35th position.
Both of these groups of young ladies have memories they can cherish a lifetime, and they’ve given all of us in Comal County a reason to be proud.
