Marble Falls softball announces season award winners

CAPTION: Kylie Roberts is the Lady Mustangs’ Most Valuable Player because her skills and her leadership. Staff photo by Jennifer Fierro

The solid performances of the Marble Falls High School softball team resulted in numerous postseason honors.

Seniors Sophia Biagini and Kylie Roberts are first team all-District 24-4A members, while freshman Callie Phillips is a member of the second team, and sophomores Jocelyn Suarez and Rylee Frisch and freshman Brooklynn Damico were honorable mention.

Abigail Boucher, Natalie Bertino, Cheyenne Blair, Emma Cayce, Mackenzie Grider, Camila Montoya, Harlie Penny, Kierstyn Plumlee, Cheyenne Thompson, Biagini, Damico, Frisch and Roberts are academic all-district.

The program also announced their team awards.

Roberts is the team’s Most Valuable Player for at least the third time. She was consistently good at the plate where she was the lead-off batter, whose primary role is to get on base. She also played shortstop and second base, which illustrates her ability to get to the ball.

“I approached her during basketball about playing some at shortstop,” head coach Alex Lozoya said. “She said, ‘Let’s do it. When do we start?’ Kylie has always been the consistent leader. It’s easy for a coach to overlook somebody who’s a steady contributor. It shouldn’t be that way. Definitely, she did a great job at leading up the middle. We’ll need a couple of people to make up for what Kylie brought to the program.”

Suarez is the Defensive Player of the Year.

“The athleticism that young lady has is tremendous,” Lozoya said. “We got to see her make an impact at centerfield with how much ground she covers. We saw what she can do as a catcher. We really appreciated her versatility. When she was on the field, she made plays like she knows she can.”

Phillips is the Offensive Player of the Year. It seemed when the Lady Mustangs needed someone to deliver a hit for a score, Phillips stepped up. She hit a homer in the first game against Jarrell and had a knack for getting her teammates home, the coach said.

“She has a presence about her,” he said. “She was a special player, who produced in the clutch.”

Damico is the program’s Newcomer of the Year.

“Brooklynn got better as the year went on,” Lozoya said. “She held very good offensive teams to minimal runs. I think Brooklynn had a strong year. Brooklynn has worked hard and gotten better as the year went on.”

She and the coach have identified some off-season goals, and the player understands the next steps she must take in order to be the player the program needs, he added.

“After school, she’s been hanging out at the (program’s) cages, putting in the work to become a better hitter,” Lozoya said.

Named Most Improved is Frisch.

Lozoya said he and assistant coach Hailey Wooten saw that Frisch “was moving differently and performing better.”

“She’d talk more confidently,” he said. “Her play showed it. She found a way to move up in the lineup. She went four or five district games without striking out. With the pitchers in our district, that’s very hard to do.”

Three pitchers have signed to play in college.

The Heart and Hustle award went to Blair and Thompson.

“Blair worked hard, she’s very coachable, she’s an outstanding teammate. She has a team-first approach,” the coach said. “Thompson never missed a practice or a game unless she had another commitment. She was very hard working for our group. I look for her to have an outstanding senior year next year.”

The Junior Varsity Players of the year are freshman Devyn Salazar and Montoya, who split her time between the varsity and the junior varsity.

The coach noted that Montoya works out some with Suarez, which has been beneficial.

“Camila made a big impact,” Lozoya said. “She’s improved. She’s always asking, ‘Teach me how to do this, show me how to do that.’ She’s a very confident young lady.

“Devyn has been very consistent for this group from start to finish,” he added. “She’s definitely gotten better. It’s very hard to find anybody who’s going to outwork Devyn. She’s somebody who got better since August and did a good job of putting herself in the mix. She’s a bright spot going into next season.”

He called working with assistant coaches Aspen Howie and Wooten “a blessing and a privilege.”

“I feel blessed to have them on staff,” he said. “They see the opportunity they have as role models for the girls. They’re very passionate about what they do. We keep getting better and better. A big part of it is what they do.”

The program invited eighth-graders to attend the team banquet May 15 “so they can see and hear the hard work,” Lozoya said.

“Hopefully they got to see all the kids for who they are, not for what they do,” he said. “We don’t need you to be like that senior group. They left a mark and got better as the year went on, especially after freshman year. They left the program better than they found it. As freshmen, they took their lumps. They expected to get better every year.”

CAPTION: Jocelyn Suarez is the team’s Defensive Player of the Year because of her ability to play multiple positions. Staff photo by Jennifer Fierro