Smoky Hill junior Eliana Trujillo made a big juggling catch in the early going of the Buffaloes’ loss to Mountain Vista. 
Senior Delaney Farnsworth reacts after her three-run home run as the Smoky Hill softball team rallied before falling to Mountain Vista 13-9 in a Class 5A state softball first round game Oct. 22 at the Aurora Sports Park. 
Senior Ryleigh Cruz, center, and members of the Cherokee Trail softball team celebrate a home run by senior CC Cushenbery in the Cougars’ 10-3 loss to Legend in a Class 5A state softball first round game on Oct. 22 at the Aurora Sports Park
AURORA | Two groups of seniors helped their respective teams battle to the end at the Class 5A state softball tournament before it came to an end Oct. 21.
Fueled by seniors that have made their programs the most successful in Aurora and among the tops in the state for the past four years, both 11th-seeded Smoky Hill and 13th-seeded Cherokee Trail dropped their opening round contests at the Aurora Sports Park.
The two Centennial League programs bid farewell to a senior group that has been extremely impactful and will leave a legacy in their wake.
For Cherokee Trail, the senior group witnessed a lot of winning at the state tournament as the Cougars played for the championship in two of the previous three seasons coming into 2021.
In their final state trip, Cherokee Trail’s seniors ended up playing the eventual state champions in the opening round. Coach Caley Mitchell’s Cougars dropped a 10-3 contest to fourth-seeded Legend, which would go on to win three more times and claim the title with an 8-0 victory over No. 2 Columbine.
Senior Ryleigh Cruz — Aurora’s second most prolific home run hitter after Smoky Hill’s Amrajie Bass — drove one over the fence as the leadoff hitter of the game to get Cherokee Trail started, but it would be the last run the Cougars would score until the sixth inning. Another senior, CC Cushenbery, hit a two-run home run to give the Cougars some life, but the Titans scored three more times in the bottom of the inning to seal the result.
Key contributors Brooke Scott and Jaelyn Martinez also played their final games for Cherokee Trail.
Another senior who would have been a key part in Cherokee Trail’s state tournament was unable to play in pitcher Jenna Medhus, who missed the entire season due to injury. Medhus — who pitched in both of the Cougars’ state championship games the previous three seasons — did her best to contribute in other ways like working with the team’s pitchers.
Mitchell knows Cherokee Trail will have a hard time replacing the seniors, but a group of juniors and sophomores that were also key to the Cougars’ success should benefit from the experience.
Another senior group that will be hard to replace is that of Smoky Hill, as a core group that included Bass, Izzy Giroux, Delaney Farnsworth, Paris Elsberry and Ellie Virtue, who saw their final season end with a 13-9 loss to Mountain Vista.
The Buffaloes lacked depth on the lower levels, so coach B.J. Kingsbaker knew this season would be a big one as his team sought the breakthrough postseason performance that had previously eluded them.
After picking up 22 victories between the regular season and regional play, Smoky Hill has won 75 games over the past four seasons — even with a shortened season a year ago — and a very large part is due to the seniors. Those seniors helped dig in when the Buffaloes trailed the Golden Eagles 13-2 and were on the verge of losing by the 10-run mercy rule.
Smoky Hill literally went down swinging as junior Gabi Giroux (who had four hits in four at-bats) singled to start a fifth-inning rally in which Bass and Izzy Giroux scored on Elsberry’s two-run single and Farnsworth cleared traffic on the bases with a three-run home run.
Farnsworth — who pitched nearly every inning of the season for Smoky Hill — returned to the mound despite Mountain Vista’s offensive success in the early innings and gave her team a chance to come back by allowing just a single run over the final three frames. Izzy Giroux and Farnsworth drove in runs in the seventh as the Buffaloes crept within four before the rally ended.