Missing: Kayla Green

If I was clever with Photoshop (or had access Photoshop) this post would start with a cheesy crop of this picture on a milk carton.  I’ll address this issue up front before getting to this weekend’s game coverage.  While it was Senior Day at the Softball Complex, we were short one senior.  We’ve apparently lost Kayla Green without being able to even say “Goodbye.”  I was with Ron at the double header.  Before Game 1 started, he nudged me and said Kayla wasn’t out with the team in practice.  Then I noticed that her number wasn’t sprayed out on the field with the other seniors’ numbers.  She wasn’t listed on the program and, finally, wasn’t present during team introductions.

After the game started, I went over and found Danny in the crowd.  He always seems very in-the-know when it comes to Aggie Sports.  He said he’d heard that Kayla had quit the team.  She was reportedly upset about Samaria Diaz being the number one pitcher on the team.  Looking over Kayla’s stats, of the team’s four pitchers, she was the worst by ERA.  She did have a winning record, though she’d taken a tough loss the last time I saw her (Game 1, 4-20-19).      

I’ve seen Kayla and Coach Rodolph have a run-in before a couple of years ago during a fall exhibition series (9-30-17 and 10-8-17).  Ron thought that Kayla seemed a bit standoffish with the rest of the team.  I’d met her once at a Women’s Basketball game (11-26-18).  She was working there and at other Aggie sports as part of her degree.  She seemed pretty nice.  She was also really sweet to a little girl before her last game.  

  

I find it incomprehensible that Kayla quit.  She was the preseason Pitcher of the Year for this year.  (I don’t understand these individual preseason awards to begin with, and given what’s happened, they’re obviously pointless and should go away.  All they do is put unnecessary pressure on the players.)  She’s been a major part of two WAC Tournament Championship teams.  I don’t know Kayla at all, but I’m sure that she’s a very competitive person to be playing at this level and this well.  If she was having a bad year, I could only imagine her either trying harder or accepting a relief role and doing her best.  She’d do whatever to win, because that’s what successful competitive people do.

If Kayla really did quit over something so petty, I’d be very disappointed in her.  I won’t forget contributions to the program in the past, though.  I’d also still respect Coach Rodolph tremendously, but she shouldn’t have let something like this happen.  I understand new freshman players sitting on the bench quitting, but not seniors who’ve been playing all season.  I don’t care if you have two other younger pitchers that you think are better and that Kayla is totally replaceable.  Good coaching is also managing player’s feelings.  Even if this story is true, there would have to be more to it.  This kind of slight wouldn’t be enough to get someone to quit this close to the end of the season.

Regardless of whatever happened, the end result is that the team is now minus one very experienced pitcher.  I don’t think the Aggies were going to be favored going into the tournament even with four pitchers.  Now they have an excuse for not winning.  Alternately, this incident brings the team together (or its addition by subtraction) and they rally for an unexpected victory.  Either way, this season’s been kind of spoiled for me now.  My expectations have been going down all season as the pitching, hitting, and fielding haven’t been as good as they seemed they would be before the season.  (All of the cross-scheduling with baseball also limited a lot of my viewing of the team at home.)

Going to see Aggie Softball was my second Women’s sports experience (2-14-6).  [Women’s Basketball was the first (1-23-16).]  Kayla was my instant favorite when she came into the circle late in the game.  This was one of her first appearances.  She was all smiles and just looked good out there in uniform pitching.  I liked the freckles, too.  It wasn’t a good outing, but I thought she’d improve, and I was right.  Frankly, this no-show for Senior Day is a terrible parting, however it happened.  Out of Brooke Salas, Aileen Galicia, Kelsey Horton, and Victoria Castro leaving this year, Kayla Green’s exit has been perhaps most hurtful. 

During Game 1, I noticed a girl in the crowd that looked like Kayla.  She was wearing big sunglasses, so it was sort of hard to tell.  Her hair was in a small bun, unlike the long ponytail style Kayla usually puts her magnificent hair in.  This girl watched the game with little reaction to on-field events and didn’t come back for Game 2 and the Senior Day ceremonies.  Maybe it was just wishful thinking on my part that it was her.