Although an individual player’s endeavors and statistics as well as a player’s impact on a team are important, no team can win with just one player. That is of course, why they call it team sports, and Maggie Forness, Grant High School senior varsity softball player for the Generals, is well aware of this.

“This season, I hope that we can come together as a team, and be as good as we can possibly be,” says Forness, a middle-infielder who has played for the Grant varsity softball team since she was a young freshman learning the ropes of head coach Debbi Engelstad’s system. This year, Forness is the only returning senior from last year’s team, and she is willing and ready to be the leader of this year’s young squad. “I’m excited to be a senior, and the captain. I know how Debbi coaches, and I’m going to be there to teach and help the newcomers.”

Forness began playing softball when she was five years- old, and has been playing every single year since, participating on more than eight different teams.

When she was 13, Forness was an instrumental player on the Oregon Lady Ballers team that placed second in the Little League Softball Playoffs, losing to a team that went on to play in the Little League World Series. When citing her fondest memory as a softball player, Forness goes back to her days with the Lady Ballers, playing in the semi-fi nal game of the Little League State Playoffs when she hit in the game winning run for her team. “It felt like it was straight out of a Disney movie, my coach ran up to me at second base and hugged me, and my mom was crying.”

Last year, Forness was part of a Generals team that had been together since she was a freshman, and although most of the girls on the team were seniors, she formed a very close bond with all of them, a bond that has lasted for more than three years. Rachel Frank, her fellow teammate who graduated last year, has been Forness’ best friend since she was a young child, and the close friendships that she had with many of the girls on last year's team are still strong today. “We were all best friends, we all grew together.”

This year, Forness will be playing with some new players, but the Generals will have some returning players as well including Jennifer Lutton and Ericka Clark. It seems that this years team may not be as close knit as past Grant softball teams. Forness believes that it will be “hard to adjust, as we just a had a sisterhood last year,” but she remains very optimistic about this year’s team believing that players like Lutton and Clark will be great assets to the teams success this season saying “I couldn’t be here without them.”

Forness also believes that with the experienced coaching staff centralized around head coach Debbi Engelstad and Brooks Bromley, players will succeed under their coaching styles explaining that “Their coach to player relationships are really good. They kind of feel like parents.”

As Forness has been playing on the Grant varsity team since she was a freshman, she does, and rightfully should, feel a sense of accomplishment. “I don’t think I ever expected it, but I hoped for the opportunity, and I knew that I was capable of doing it.”

As for her personal goals this season, which are less important to her than Grant's overall achievments, like getting Grant past the fi rst round of the playoffs, she aspires to make fi rst team all league, and to get a state league all mention, which with her play over the past few seasons is well in her grasp. After high school, Forness hopes to move up to the college level game to play for Western Oregon University.

After playing on so many different teams, and for so many different coaches, for more than 12 years, Forness has learned a few things. “Softball has helped me learn that there are a lot of different people out there, on and off the field. I love meeting new people, learning how different coaches coach, and how you can be a totally different person on the field then off the fi eld. When you are on the field, it is completely different than in real life.”

Looking back through her years playing softball, not only for Grant, but for teams like Riverside and the Riptide, Forness feels that softball has helped her in building friendships with people. On being the new captain of the team, Forness feels that “It is a bit nerve racking, I don’t want to be the senior captain no one likes.” Being the team player that she is, its apparent that the new leader and captain of a fairly young team has her work cut out for her this season, work that she will no doubt need help with from her teammates.