By Mike Reeder
Contributing Writer

The softball season is over for the Boerne Lady Greyhounds, who were swept in two games by the state-ranked New Braunfels Canyon Cougarettes in the area round of the playoffs at the NEISD fields.

The Lady Hounds lost the opening game 7-5 and dropped the nightcap 2-0, ending Boerne’s reign as the defending state champions. The loss also marked the end of Head Softball Coach Jennifer Fox’s career at Boerne.

Fox is leaving at the end of the school year to take the head softball coaching job at the new Lady Bird Johnson High School in Northeast San Antonio. She will be replaced by Krystal Clare, who currently coaches the junior varsity at Stevens.

Moments after her team was eliminated from the playoffs, Fox was asked if it had hit her yet that she had just coached her last game at Boerne.

“It just did,” she replied, before welling up with tears and too overcome with emotion to speak.

Minutes before, Fox had consoled her players, reminding them that no single loss could wipe out all they had accomplished.

“We told them it hurts right now, but everything they’ve done, no one can take away from them,” Fox said.

“Last year, winning the state championship, there are very few people, players or coaches, who can say they’ve done that. It will be something they’ll remember the rest of their lives.”

Only four starters returned this year from the state championship team. Five of the graduates and two members of this year’s team signed college athletic scholarships.

Senior second baseman Chelsea Muskopf, who will play next year at Incarnate Word, says her class can be proud of its own accomplishments.

“I feel really good about how we came out this year,” Muskopf said. “No one expected us to do anything and we proved everyone wrong. There were absolutely no expectations after losing all the seniors, and we showed that Boerne softball is always going to compete.”

Boerne ends the season with a record of 22-15-1 to go with its fourth consecutive playoff appearance.