Lady Yoe ready for new season
Last year, the Cameron Lady Yoe softball team had a much improved season, finishing with a record of 19-11 and a district record of 7-5 and made the playoffs. They were swept in the first round by the eventual state semifinalists Franklin Lady Lions.
This year, they will have a new head coach at the helm, LaBaron Graham. This is not his first time at Cameron and this is his second stint coaching softball. Before this, he coached in Santa Anna. He was previously at Bonham Middle School in Temple these past two years as a boy’s coordinator, before that he was in the military from 2011-2013 as an engineer in the army. He previously coached in Smithville for a year, then in Cameron (due to his wife being hired as an administrator in Cameron) for a year before Temple, now has returned to Cameron.
“The reason I’m back is because there was a junior high boys coordinator position, and I’ve known Coach Rhoades in the past, and I live here,” Graham said. “That was the main reason and it was a perfect opportunity.”
Graham will be inheriting 10 returning players from last season: Kasara Brooks, Delanie Evans, Sam Frausto, Lauren Harris, Brooklyn McCall, Peyton Polson, Zayda Spillers, Lindsey Talafuse, Kaly White, and Camryn Ward. Seven of those 10 are upperclassmen.
“To me, if you don’t have senior leadership, your team is dead in the water,” Graham said. “You have to have that. One of my biggest worries when I first came in was (not) having a JV team. I was worried about that because I knew we’d have a varsity team, but I was worried about having JV. We’re going to have both but those seniors that are on that team being able to do those things, and then the juniors who are involved in that group, it’s going to be huge for us. It’s going to bring us to another level. I think we’re going to push past the level of just getting to the first round and just going. I think we’re going to be able to push past that point.”
Along with senior leadership, the Lady Yoe also have three players - Lauren Harris, Lindsey Talafuse, and Delanie Evans - who participated in the 18U Little League World Series out in Delaware for team Central Texas back in early August. All three of them didn’t just participate, they all got quality playing time and made big contributions to the team, going undefeated in their trip and helped the team win the 18U Little League World Series Championship. Graham believes that all of that experience will more than come in handy throughout the 2023 season.
“I think the best thing we have now is experience,” Graham said. “We have girls who’ve played in the nationals (18U Little League World Series). So, their forte of how to play the game is unbelievable. I’m in awe sometimes of watching them play, and I think that leadership from what they have thrives to the younger players that we have. But, I think the biggest thing that we want to do on our side is get a district championship or a second round (two seed) where we don’t play (A team like) Franklin for a couple rounds, so we can get our feet wet in the playoffs, and get that motivation before we get to a team like Franklin. But I think our biggest thing too is we have a really good trainer here in Ashlee Camp, who’s done an amazing job with helping these girls learn how their body works and how to take care of it, and how to use it, not just put a Band-Aid on it.”
For the next two years, the Cameron Lady Yoe will have a new set of district opponents due to the new district reclassification and realignment. The Lady Yoe will not be moving anywhere as they will remain in Region 3 District 19. They will have many familiar opponents: Lexington, Little River Academy, Rogers, and Rockdale. They will be losing Florence to District 5 and Caldwell to 4A and in their place they are getting three new teams. Those three teams are McGregor, Lorena, and Troy.
“To me, it’s a huge advantage because I think people don’t know who we are and we don’t know who they are,” Graham said. “Like McGregor, he’s looking for C teams. He’s got tons of girls out there, it doesn’t mean they’re the caliber of a really good team. He’s got lots of girls, so that tells me their program is up. It’s hard playing teams where they’re not very good. And that’s our first go around through this, we’re playing teams that aren’t very good. We went to Hillsboro, I thought they’d be a really good team. They weren’t very good, we run ruled them pretty quick. It’s not very good for our program to be able to do that. We want to play teams that are tough, that we’re in 2-3 ball games and stuff like that.”
He said he thinks with our realignment, especially having Troy, and having the old coach that was here go to Troy (Chris Sommerfeld), he thinks that going to add some fire in our eyes.
“I will say this, looking at our girls every day, there is a drive to be really good and to go a long, long way,” Graham said.
The girls defeated Waco Connally 20-4 on Tuesday.