On a gray Wednesday afternoon in mid-February, the weather refused to settle. A light drizzle fell through the morning, let up for a stretch, then returned in a brief surge of rain about 25 minutes before San Dieguito Academy’s softball team took the field for practice.
By the time the Mustangs stepped onto the diamond, a dampness lingered — the dirt darker, the grass slick beneath their cleats.
SDA head coach Daniel Reitz, in his second season, didn’t linger as his team huddled around him.
“Nobody cares that it’s wet,” he said. “Winners find a way.”
The message fit. A year ago, Reitz inherited a seven-win program. In his first season, the Mustangs won 18 games, captured the Avocado League title and advanced to the Division III section semifinals.
“We had two new coaches come in [pitching coach Amelia Williams], and I think it created an environment that was more competitive than we’ve had in the past,” senior center fielder Aubrey Early said. “We focused more on actually winning than fundamental stuff.”
“[Reitz] switched all of our mindsets,” senior shortstop Willow Wright added. “We have a winning mindset that we can do this and we want to make a whole new brand for ourselves.”
“We were held to a higher standard,” junior Alyson Robbins said.
“It’s not just being held accountable, we are holding each other accountable,” added senior Kegan Herceg.
The biggest question for SDA heading into the new season is how the team will perform after graduating nine seniors.
“Incredibly incentivizing to try to come back and win a league title again,” Reitz said. “The freshmen that we have are very talented. They’re very skilled. They play a lot of competitive softball. The part that maybe they’re not super used to is the detail and the care factor of winning — like trying to win every single game. I tell them all the time, in travel ball these games kind of blend together. It’s just kind of like another game: you go play five games a weekend, and then the next weekend you play five more, and it’s kind of like whatever. You don’t have that luxury here. You have to be locked into every game.”
Reitz, a former second baseman and catcher at the University of Hawaii at Hilo with a background in baseball coaching, had never coached softball before. An English teacher at SDA and the school’s flag football coach, he first became involved with the program when Wright, then a sophomore, asked for help with her swing.
“I started training her specifically and then last year a bunch of parents came to me and asked if I would consider taking over the program,” Reitz said. “To be honest, I didn’t want to at first — I have three little kids and just wanted to be a dad, which is why I stepped away from baseball a while ago. But I figured, if we’re going to do it, let’s do it right. I made it clear: we were going to do it really well, very detailed, no cutting corners, and with the expectation that we’d be successful.”
From there, Reitz and his staff set out to define clear goals for each player and for the team as a whole.
“The team wanted five girls on the all-league team, a record above .500, a shot at winning the league, and a chance to make CIF,” he said. “By the end of the year, we checked all those off.”
Amid the uncertainty of roster turnover, the middle of the field — anchored by Wright and Early — is expected to be the team’s strength. Last season, Wright led the Avocado League in several offensive categories, hitting .531 with seven home runs and 29 RBIs. Early was right behind her, finishing second on the team with 28 hits and one home run.
“Aubrey is the consummate professional,” Reitz said. “She is incredibly competitive. She holds people around her to a standard that is unwavering, and she is just incredibly fierce. Willow is a different spirit. She’s our shortstop, she’s our three hitter, she’s joy-filled, and she can do it all.”
Self-described best friends, Wright and Early will play collegiately next year together at Reitz’s alma mater, the University of Hawaii at Hilo.
“They both contribute heavily with leadership,” Robbins said.
“When I hit a home run, she is the biggest one cheering for me,” Wright said.
“And she hits a lot of home runs,” Early added. “We are each other’s biggest supporters.”
SDA opened the season on Feb. 25 with a 4-3 home loss to Canyon Hills.
