Softball: Palmer Ridge program trending upward under Coach Romero
Jason Romero was courted by Palmer Ridge to take over the Bears’ wrestling program in 2018 and not long after that, he found himself also coaching the school’s softball team.
The latter promised to be more of a rebuilding effort than the former, which was fine with Romero considering his baseball background after coaching at Alamosa for years. The Palmer Ridge softball program, however, was really struggling with numbers and participation and it needed a spark.
A couple years later, it looks like Romero may have been exactly the spark the Bears needed.
In both of Romero’s first two seasons as head softball coach at Palmer Ridge, the Bears have posted a 23-16 record over two above-.500 seasons. Now heading into its third season with Romero at the helm, the Bears are starting to raise their own expectations.
“We’re proud of ourselves and how we’re building the program,” Romero said. “We took it over with only nine girls out and very few club girls, but we just had to start recruiting the athletes. We’ve gotten a lot of girls who are good athletes and not just softball players. And we’re really starting to get a lot of club girls out, which is great because there’s a lot of talent here in Monument.”
Romero, who believes the same principles apply when coaching any sport, feels strongly that building a winning program is dependent upon creating a winning culture. He also believes that coaching is about facilitating the growth of young individuals, not just winning softball games or wrestling matches.
That approach appears to be paying off, as the Bears now have a varsity and a JV-level program, and they’re building towards a C-team and summer programs.
“My background in baseball kind of shot me into that spot to take over softball,” Romero said. “My philosophy to coaching is kind of the CHSAA model where it’s more education-based. We’re obviously building towards competing at a high level and winning trophies. But in the long run, it’s more about building relationship and fostering the ideals that I think set kids up for real life and to grow up to be good people.”
With the Palmer Ridge softball program trending upward, the Bears have good reason to believe that will continue since only one of the 13 girls who played in a game last season was a senior. They’ve got players like senior corner infielder Shayna McHugh, who posted a 1.319 OPS last fall, are back in the mix. Others like Brynn Short, Brook Bornitz, Geneva German, Rian Van Winkle, Grace Smith and Brooklyn Horsley, who all batted .350 or above in 2020, have not graduated.
“It’s super exciting,” McHugh said. “Through the years, the program is just building on itself and I feel pretty good that we could make it to state this year. That would be really amazing because I’ve never been and to end the season like that is every high school player’s dream. It would be huge for the program because we’re getting more and more players out every year.
“We’re really building on the culture we have here at Palmer Ridge and to help do that for the softball team is really something special.”
The feeling in the Palmer Ridge dugout is that the Bears could be in for a special season in 2021. They’ll kick off the new campaign on Saturday at Pueblo Centennial.
And on a personal level for Romero, he’ll also have the added priviledge of coaching his daughter, who is a freshman this season.
“It was kind of a blessing in disguise because my daughter was in sixth grade when I took over and now she’s going to be a freshman,” Romero said. “So that was never part of the plan, but it’s going to be really special to coach her.”
