In the 2023 season, Grayslake Central’s Softball team lost a familiar face on the sideline, but also saw a new face in a new role, as former assistant coach Jim Plaza took over as head coach this year. Plaza is working with an unusually young team, with three freshmen, six sophomores, and six juniors, with no seniors on the team for the first time. With this young group of players, Plaza has focused on developing confidence in the players, along with unity between the two team levels.

“We just want to continue building a culture in the program of togetherness, that’s a big thing we’re focusing on,” Plaza explained. “We try to create a winning culture, where we emphasize practice, we emphasize improvement, and we emphasize becoming better every single day.”

Currently the team holds a record of 5 wins and 5 losses in conference, a decisive improvement over the one win and eight losses the team had last year. Plaza sees the past few tough seasons as learning experiences, with there being opportunities for improvement for everyone, and remains optimistic about their remaining season.

“Softball is a game of failure, we tell them all the time even the best players are going to fail more than half the time, and so you have to learn how to deal with failure and one of the things we focus on is what is your way of ‘flushing’ the bad things?” Plaza said. “We do obviously celebrate the successes and remind them of that… One of the big things we say when they’re at bat or even in the field sometimes is ‘We know you can,’ because they’ve done it before, and honestly, that’s a huge part of the game… just dealing with failure and bouncing back from it.”