Senior season marks end of career for five Pittsburg State softball players

The seniors talk about where they will be going after softball ends.

Key takeaways:

• The 2023 season has been the most successful season since they all arrived at PSU.
• They recount some of their favorite memories, such as watching the Chiefs win the super bowl on the team bus.
• The seniors will also talk about what happens for them after graduation.

Senior year for any college student brings mixed emotions along with it. That goes doubly so for many college athletes who have not only their time as students end but also their athletic careers. 

For Pittsburg State University’s softball team, that’s the case for five players: designated hitter Kylee Bohle, second baseman Taylor Lambert, right fielder Kianna Pellegrino, third baseman Kori Stonestreet and center fielder Keelah Griffith. 

The final chapter in their playing careers is going well, as the senior Gorillas put up the most wins this season than in any other season they have been here. On an individual basis, Lambert and Bohle lead the team in batting average, hitting .406 and .359. Pellegrino is second on the team in home runs with six, while Griffith has been solid in center field and Stonestreet has been a clubhouse leader.

The seniors said they are excited with how the season has been going and were ready for the weekend games against Washburn and Emporia State. 

“I think we are really excited for this coming weekend,” Griffith said before those series. “I know these are big games for us that lead to our conference tournament. I think we are just really excited to finish off this season and make a good run.”

They ended up going 1-3 in that series, starting off with a resounding 16-3 win over the Emporia State Hornets. The other three games did not go so well. They lost the second game to Emporia 13-8 in an offensive slugfest and then, on Saturday, April 15, they were swept by the Washburn Ichabods. 

While Pittsburg State is where they will end their careers, Pittsburg was not where they all started in their college athletic careers. Lambert started at Butler Community College and Stonestreet transferred in from the University of Nebraska-Omaha, while the rest have been in Pittsburg since they were freshmen.

A lot of the best parts of being a collegiate athlete don’t come from the field itself, the seniors said, but from the memories made with their team over the course of their college careers. 

“I feel like just hanging out with my teammates,” Griffith said. “The locker room, hotel rooms and bus rides, stuff like that. One bus ride we watched the Chiefs play the Super Bowl, and we celebrated that.” 

On-the-field accomplishments were big memories for Lambert, Griffith and Bohle, and their favorite accomplishment as a team was agreed upon unanimously between the three of them.

“Sweeping Rogers State was pretty awesome,” Lambert said. “That was a big one for sure.” 

Rogers State was ranked second in the nation when they came down to Pittsburg in March for a doubleheader. The Gorillas pulled off back-to-back upsets in that series, beating the Hillcats 1-0 in the first game and 4-3 in the second game. 

The seniors hope they can pull off a big win streak in the last few games of the regular season, with the Gorillas currently ranked ninth in the MIAA conference. They would be left out of the tournament right now, as the MIAA tournament includes only the top eight seeds.

While softball will end for the senior class in less than a month, life will go on as they go out to find jobs after graduation. 

Griffith and Stonestreet said they will pursue master’s degrees at Pitt State, with Griffith currently a year into her master’s in sports administration and Stonestreet will be starting her master’s in business and was also recently accepted as a graduate assistant in the Kelce College of Business.

Bohle will be finishing up her master’s degree at Pittsburg State and will move back home to Michigan to be a physical education teacher, and Lambert will be finishing up her bachelors and wants to move to Kansas City to work in interior design.

Pellegrino will be continuing her degree in nursing after her eligibility runs out this season.