ROYAL CITY — After an early exit from the 2022 1A State Softball Tournament, the Royal Knights are entering the 2023 campaign with the goal of going further in state.

“I want to go out with a bang in my senior year,” Senior Addi Lawrence said. “I’m hoping to make it farther than we did last year. My goal is fourth place or higher at state this year.”

The Knights are returning many of the same core of players from last season, as well as bringing on a solid group of freshmen.

“Our energy’s up, for sure,” Head Coach Lisa Lawrence said. “Last year we lost one player who was a senior, we’ve gained a couple of freshmen and retained everyone else. Everybody’s really excited to take on the year. We feel like it got cut a little short at state last year, losing that first game. Everyone’s ready to redeem themselves and work this year to go a little farther.”

Lawrence described retaining as many players as they did, while also having a significant amount of freshmen and a strong pitching staff, as a “unicorn year,” nodding to the rarity of a coach having all these aspects.

“It’s an exciting year; we’ve got a lot of experience,” Lawrence said.

Royal finished the 2022 season with a 15-6 record with second-place finishes in the South Central Athletic Conference regular season and district tournaments and earned a No. 9 seed in the state tournament. Against Castle Rock in the first round, the Knights fell 10-0.

“We feel like we could have played better, maybe nerves got the best of us,” Lisa Lawrence said. “Now we’ve seen it, we’ve been there. I think this year we’re going to perform a lot better.”

Since they were unable to cancel their hotel reservations for the remainder of the tournament, the Knights ended up staying throughout state last year to watch the games play out. Lawrence said the decision to stay led to good team bonding.

“It was an amazing experience,” Lawrence said. “We actually stayed and watched the rest of the state tournament. We were the only team that did that. We got to see the teams that succeeded and went farther and what it takes to get there. I think that was a good experience.”

Team chemistry is a strength for the 2023 Knights, having years of playing experience with one another in softball as well as in other sports at Royal High School. Along with a strong bond on the field, the Knights still aim to improve with every practice.

“We’ve got a good core of girls that have been playing travel ball so that’s a good foundation to be starting with, but we work a lot on trying to improve, even in the little ways, every practice,” Lisa Lawrence said. “We work a lot on the mental game. Even for the girls that have less experience, coming into it with the right mindset is really a strong attribute.”

Senior Madison Ortega-Sanchez said the camaraderie was a common theme last year as well.

“We have a really good team, and the chemistry that we have and ability to play with each other is, hopefully, going to carry on to this year,” Ortega-Sanchez said.

Along with a full slate of SCAC games, the Knights have scheduled non-league contests against Eastmont (4A), Warden (2B, No. 2 seed at the 2B state tournament) and Mount Baker (fourth place at 1A state tournament).

“Facing better competition will boost our confidence, for when we get (to state),” Addi Lawrence said. “When we see this team has a good pitcher, okay, we’ve faced them before and we know we can do it again.”

Along with making it back and improving on last year’s finish at state, Addi Lawrence and Ortega-Sanchez said their goals for this season are to win league and districts.

“We want some hardware,” Ortega-Sanchez said.

“For the trophy cases, not just football,” Addi Lawrence added. “We have our own stuff to bring.”

Ian Bivona can be reached via email at ibivona@columbiabasinherald.com.