The Lincoln East varsity softball team failed to qualify for state, losing to Millard West last weekend. For the seniors on the softball team, this has become a normal occurrence. This is the third time the seniors have experienced a runner up plaque in their district games throughout their four years. Last year, the Spartans needed a bit of luck to advance to state, picking up the wild card spot. But it wasn’t to be this year.

Getting a chance to play for a state berth was a challenge in itself. With all of the rain, having time to play was difficult to find. A scheduled Thursday game got rained out, and the NSAA was trying to decide what to do. They decided to have all class A districts be single elimination games instead of the normal double elimination.

The Spartans first game was against Omaha Central. Winning pitcher, senior Lindsay Elliot, and the rest of the Spartans battled through the on and off rain, keeping up with the poor field conditions and getting the win, 10-2, to go through to the final game against Millard West.

The last game to determine if the Spartans were going to make it to State for a second year in a row or not was against Millard West, a team that the Spartans haven’t really ever played before. They got through an inning and a third before the rain came and postponed them to Saturday at 3:00. On Saturday, the Spartans kept the game close, but not close enough. The final score to end the Spartans season was 2-0.

The Spartan roster included 10 seniors, the most Coach Lance Kingery has had in his time as head coach at East.

“I’m not happy about losing these 10 seniors. I really don’t want it to end with this group of girls,” Lance Kingery.