The drought is over! Palm Beach Gardens softball defeats Park Vista for 20th win

LAKE WORTH — Palm Beach Gardens softball has taken care of the elephant in the room.

For the first time since 2018, the Gators defeated Park Vista to overtake them as the new top dog in Palm Beach County.

To make it sweeter, the win also secured the first 20-win season in the same time frame.

“I was trying not to focus on the 20-win mark too much,” Gardens' Sydney Shaffer said. “But this year definitely felt different, like we were going to beat Park Vista. We'd been playing good teams and had been performing really well, so Park Vista didn't seem too big of a wall to climb this year.”

Wednesday night's 3-1 victory wasn't flashy.

Both teams hit a litany of pop-ups for easy outs, and very few batters from either side challenged the rise balls from each opposing pitcher.

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Gardens’ win came down to, quite simply, better fundamentals.

Known for their defensive prowess, the Cobras' infield made back-to-back uncharacteristic missed-catch errors in the third inning, allowing two runners to score on what would normally be routine outs.

“We've been focusing in practice a lot on fundamentals, outfield, infield, everything,” Holly Frankl said. “Sydney pitched good, so we had to back her up.”

The Gators are not the type of team to allow opposing squads back into a game.

Staked to a gift-wrapped 3-0 lead, there was no looking back.

Six long years.

“Nobody’s counting,” Gardens head coach Randy Jackson said with the ghost of a smile.

“Tonight was all about situations,” he continued. “The fly ball gave us a couple, but we didn’t quit. We hustled and scored two on that, but we could have not hustled and maybe not scored two. They’re doing the right things. They’re getting ready.”

While Park Vista’s miscues opened the door for the visiting Gators, Gardens’ defense was flawless all night.

As the hometown Cobras chased their adversaries, Gardens’ Frankl and Brynn Dion-Catasus made back-to-back exceptional plays in the outfield to shut down opportunities.

It bears repeating: fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals.

“It’s what we stress and what we want to do,” Jackson said. “We work defense every day. We talk about rotations, about situations. We made some nice running catches tonight, in the outfield and the infield. That last catch Tori [Scott] made was not an easy play.”

In the end, the ball keeps on rolling.

“20 wins is big,” Jackson said. “But 21 will be bigger.”