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The McCallum softball teams both defeated the LBJ Jags Friday night at Noack. The varsity won, 11-8, while the JV won, 15-3.
In the varsity game, Julia Crofut (’19) homered for the third time this season.
Nina Buford (’18) pitched a complete game to earn the win and continues to pad her season strikeout total. She’s now ranks No. 15 nationally in total strikeouts so far this season.
Sophomore Zoë Tormollen anchored the defense in center field with three putouts. The defense also came up big in the bottom of the seventh.
With LBJ mounting a comeback, the Knights appeared to end the game with an unusual double play. After a dropped third strike, the Knights got the second out when catcher Talina Briceno (’17) threw to first baseman Zoë Hocker (’19), who then threw back home to Briceno for a tag play at home that appeared to end the game, but the umps called the LBJ runner safe. But the Knights rallied to end the game with a putout at first on the next batter.
Photos by Sylvia Zamora.
![A PRIDE-FUL WEEK OF CELEBRATION:
As part of AISDs week-long celebration of PRIDE, students of the McCallum Spectrum Club worked to create a week full of activities, prizes and helping hands to support the schools LGBTQ+ community. The club is widely available for anyone to join, and specializes in creating a safe space for students to share and give advice. While Pride month itself isn’t until June, AISD designates one week in March to celebrate and commemorate the importance of this part of the student body.
As part of the week of festivities, the club held a booth in the front hall handing out pride stickers, pins and merch to passers by. For junior Zane Joly, the booth idea was brought up as a way for students to engage with one another, and connect with the community.
“I call out to people in the halls, ‘hey, do you want stickers?’” Joly said. “We just give out free pride stickers and sometimes other free pride merch to the students of Macallum because everybody likes pride stickers.”
While the week itself is packed with a variety of different activities, the overall goal is to bring students closer together and create a safer environment for self expression at McCallum.
“The idea for the student panel largely came from the black [history] student panel that is done during Black History Month,” Joly said. “And the idea for giving out free stuff was developed at Spectrum last year.”
Joly is not only a member of the Spectrum club, but also holds a leadership position giving them a more hands-on role with the projects and Pride Week activities.
“McCallum has a very high queer population,” Joly said. “I think Its nice that we get a chance to celebrate Pride because Pride Month is during the summer, and I think its just a nice thing for the community and getting to just celebrate it.”
While the merch table at lunch was only a small part of the numerous parts of McCallum’s Pride week, for Joly this small impact made all the difference.
“The purpose of Pride is to make people not feel alone and to make them feel safe,” Joly said. “The goal is [to make people] happy about a part of themselves that theyre often conditioned to not feel good about.”
Caption by Chloe Lewcock. Photo by Shila Gill.](https://macshieldonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/53597258192_6e7168d8ae_o-1-1200x676.jpg)
