The defending 5A state champion softball girls (16-5) will be sharing the field with the Marcus Marauders (17-5) on tonight at 7 p.m. for their second district game.

Last year’s game against Marcus resulted in a win and entrance to the state tournament, so the team knows what to expect against the rival and what to work on. One of the improvements needed is thinking as a team.

“I think beating [Marcus] last year in the playoffs will help us be prepared to play them on Friday this year,” senior captain Megan Haggard said. “I think we probably need better pitcher-catcher communication.”

Haggard said that although they have some things to work on, they have strengths.

“Our defense is solid,” Haggard said. “We have one of the most rockhard defenses I’ve seen out of this whole season’s teams we played.”

Head coach Lori Alexander also said that the girls have some areas to work on.

“Just being consistent with our hitting and field and when we’re hitting the ball well, we usually play better all around,” Alexander said. “When our bat is a little bit cold, it tends to weigh on our defense as well and we don’t play quite as good as what we typically do, so I would just say being more consistent.”

Haggard said that the team tends to play weaker by the end of the game.

“We do really well at the beginning of the game with staying intense, and making plays we need to, and then somewhere in the middle of the game we lose that intensity, we lose focus, and that’s definitely been a priority to keep focus on and work really hard on,” Haggard said. “We have games where we’re all over it and then we have some games where it just feels like nobody’s really there. It’s been a roller coaster, but we’re definitely starting to peak as a team.”

Last Tuesday the team suffered its first district loss against Flower Mound (2-1), but Haggard said they are taking the knowledge from the game for Friday.

“We actually didn’t know what to expect when we went in there, because this was like the first really competitive team we played all season,” Haggard said. “We went in there and we looked really good, we played really well. We just fell short at the end.”

The girls were the state champions last year, only adding pressure to the district games, and making it tougher.

“Last year we were the underdogs,” Haggard said. “Nobody expected us to really do anything, and going into state, even a news broadcaster said, ‘You wouldn’t expect a team with 13 losses going into state championship,’ and we did and we won. So now we’re the big dog, we’re the target, and everybody’s looking for us.”

Another strength Haggard said she hopes her team will have tonight and for the next upcoming games is the cheers from the stands.

“This is gonna be a great year,” Haggard said. “I hope we get the same fanbase as last year, because we couldn’t have done it without our fans, because they made the environment so much more fun to be around, and the girls last year loved it and I know this year we’ll love it just as much.”