This South Sound softball team hasn’t lost a league game since 2016

For a team with so much expectation, it may seem shocking how little experience the Bonney Lake softball team possessed when the 2022 season began.

Then again, experienced or not, every Panthers team deals with expectation. It comes with being a member of the program.

And it comes with the knowledge that each player and coach must confront and conquering the accompanying pressure, even on a team that hasn’t a single player who’s traversed this path previously.

“It’s almost refreshing,” junior center fielder Kyla Cross said. “Because nobody has been there. We go into every game with a clean slate. Our bond – it helps.”

Some of those bonds are rooted deeply. Others are newer but quickly grew strong.

“We all just have really good chemistry,” junior pitcher Bella Carazo said. “They’re all my best friends, on and off the field.”

Carazo has proven the anchor for the Panthers in the circle, not just this season but really since she arrived three years ago. Over the first eight games this spring, she’d already amassed 73 strikeouts as Bonney Lake has continued to be a dominant force in the 3A Pierce County League.

The Panthers already are 7-0 this season in the PCL and 10-2 overall. The league record comes as little surprise, however, since Bonney Lake has yet to lose a PCL game since it joined the league in 2017.

Now in their fifth PCL season – 2020 having been wiped out completely by Covid-19 – the Panthers are a combined 57-0 in league play and look poised to take a fifth consecutive league title by the time the regular-season schedule finishes early next month.

When Bonney Lake last lost a league contest (May 10, 2016, to Enumclaw, 4-3, in the SPSL), the oldest players on the current team were in the sixth grade.

“Obviously, we’re taking care of business in the league,” Panthers coach Kate Zender said. “I’ve purposely made all of our non-league games tough. That’s where we will prepare for the playoffs.”

Bonney Lake’s only losses this spring are to Class 4A schools Kentwood, 2-1, and state-favorite Jackson of Mill Creek, 7-5. The team also has non-conference victories over 4A Rogers, Skyline and Sumner.

“That Jackson game showed us as a team just how high our potential is,” Carazo said.

The Panthers also will play Enumclaw later in the schedule. While the Hornets now are in 2A, they continue to be a quality program that Zender knows will challenge her youthful group.

“We don’t have a single player who has played a full season,” Zender said.

What Bonney Lake does have is a bunch of players who can’t wait to embrace the opportunities this full season can bring. Carazo, for instance, has been waiting since before she even attended the school.

“Bella grew up watching Bonney Lake,” Zender said. “She came to the state title game a couple of years ago. She’s grown up wanting to be a Panther.”

Watching that 2018 championship team fueled Carazo’s fire.

“It was so cool,” Carazo said. “I knew that I was going to be that in a couple of years.”

That Carazo finally has a chance to compete for the post-season with some of her best friends is the bonus. She and Cross, for instance, have been playing softball together since the fourth grade.

That bond forged early in their softball lives has grown strong over the years.

“She hypes me up in a way no one else could,” Carazo said. “She just has so much talent. She’s very hard-core, but brings so much life to the team. Sometimes, it even can become a little too much spark.”

“I just have so much energy,” Cross said with a laugh. “Sometimes I don’t want my teammates to think I’m that crazy.”

Cross backs that energy up on the field. In addition to anchoring the outfield in center, she hits both for average (around .400) and for power. Her home run against Stadium recently helped Bonney Lake’s 16-0 thrashing of the Tigers.

“From the first week of tryouts, I was like, ‘I’m coming out of my shell,’” Cross said. “I have had a totally different vibe between our high school team and my select team. But it all melds us together as one.”

“I think our team is really special” Carazo said. “With every game, we just getting the excitement to see where it can go. Everyone’s personality brings something different.”

In a season where some pundits out there believe the 3A maybe is a little down, that perceived weakness around the state may bolster Bonney Lake’s quest to climb to the top of the mountain again in 2022.

“I really think we can go far,” Carazo said.

If the Panthers do reach the state tournament in late May, and make a strong run, it likely will be just the beginning. Remember, there is not a single senior on the team.“I know, right,” Cross said. “I’m so excited for it. The potential in us is so amazing.”

This story was originally published April 20, 2022 at 5:00 AM.