Caitlyn Bradley and Haylee Smith agree: having multiple softball games, one after the other, over spring break, is tiring, but it is too much fun to complain.

The USI Softball team played twelve games over spring break. They started in Clermont, Florida, March 2 and ended in Leesburg, Florida, March 9.

“It’s a long and tiring week, but it was fun,” senior pitcher and outfielder Caitlyn Bradley said. “I think it was great to actually get outside and actually play in the warm weather before coming back here, and having to go back to the cold.”

March 3 and 4 the exercise science and kinesiology major, won the complete-game win, both against Walsh. March 5 and 6, Bradley got another complete-game win against Notre Dame.

Bradley said she felt great.

“I haven’t really pitched a lot since my sophomore here,” she said. “Just being able to help out my team this year, in my final season, is great. It was a good team win.”

It is extremely hard to obtain a complete-game win. To get a complete-game win, the pitcher must go an entire game without someone to replace them, which puts their arm and shoulder muscles at risk of being pulled or strained beyond their limit.

Senior pitcher and infielder Haylee Smith felt playing 12 games over spring break took “a toll on (her) body, but it’s a lot of fun.”

The exercise science major expressed excitement over being able to play one more time before graduating.

“Just the energy that the girls have, coming off last season and trying to get the freshman back and all excited, it’s a lot of fun this year,” Smith said.

Smith expressed some concern for the team, but says that once they get into the swing of playing, their season would be great.

“I think we have some raw talent, and I think that, with the returners coming back, we’re kind of trying to show them the way, and I think that once we get the wheels turning that it will all be okay,” Smith said. “We just have somethings to work out, but I think, as a team, as a whole, we’re still pretty good.”

Overall, Smith said she was very excited to keep playing for the rest of the season and was very optimistic about the future of the team.

“I told the team that it really doesn’t matter that we started number and and dropped,” Smith said, “because it doesn’t matter how we started, just how we end.

The next softball game begins at 12 p.m. March 16 against McKendree University in Evansville.