I have been playing softball for as long as I can remember. For me, as well as many other people, their spring sport has been their life. Since my freshman year, I have sat through three senior nights, countless award ceremonies and watched as the seniors above me have played out the final season of the sport they have grown to love so much. 

Something I especially liked doing was traveling with the LHS girls softball team. We go to Orlando every year, where we are able to get in valuable team bonding time, five games and two practices. Before leaving for this year’s trip, our program was planning for a home opener on Tuesday, March 17.  My senior season was starting. 

As COVID-19 grew worse and worse, I started to get more nervous. In my mind, the worst thing that could happen would be school turning to e-learning to try and slow the growth of this virus, but in my head, sports would continue.

After getting the news that school was going to be effectively cancelled for three weeks starting March 16, with spring break in between, I was sickened. Everything had been cancelled. No practice, no games, no team bonding, nothing. My senior season, the one that was supposed to be my best season yet, the last season I would get to play with all of my best friends, had come to a standstill. 

So many senior athletes, whether they are in high school or college, have waited for their time to graduate and finish what they have been working on for such a long time.

 This year, I had big goals for myself: to grow as a leader for my team and to also play some really good competition. In my last season, I had hoped to give everything. For me, it did not matter how well I played, but I wanted to go out knowing that I had given it everything that I had left.

In addition to spring sports, there is so much more that high school seniors are missing out on. I believe that more seniors than not don’t want to e-learn and would much rather be in school, no matter how bad the “senioritis” has gotten. One thing that every senior looks forward to since freshman year is Prom. In Dr. Koulentes’s email on April 1, he said that Prom is only postponed and not cancelled as of now. Prom is something that you can only attend if you are a junior or senior and especially when it is your senior year, most groups of people go all out for this dance, with it being a “last hoorah.”

Also, there are so many fun traditions that come along with your senior year. One thing I have always loved about LHS is how involved students and even staff get. Throughout the whole school, everybody loves getting dressed up for spirit weeks and being involved in an assortment of activities. Now, towards the end of the year, the seniors usually start an “ABC Countdown.” This is something that is only for the seniors, and it is a good way to get dressed up and have some fun for the last days of our high school career. But I’m not sure that is going to happen this year.

Although these are unusual circumstances and have a big impact on seniors, everyone throughout the whole world is being affected and more and more people every day are becoming sick and even dying from COVID-19. I believe it is important to try and remember that we still have our whole lives ahead of us, and I can assure you, once our lives start to go back to being somewhat normal, this senior class will make the most out of the remaining days we have left.