Last season was setting up to be a storybook ending for the Lakewood Ranch (Florida) High Mustangs. They steamrolled through the regular season, run-ruled their playoff opponents, and were ranked No. 1 in the country for most of the season by multiple publications.

In 2017, the Mustangs were shut out in the regional final. The following season, they made it as far as the state semifinals before being shut out again. The team entered the 2019 FHSAA 8A state championship game against the Winter Springs Bears with a perfect 30-0 mark. Perhaps this was the year they would be the first school in Manatee county to bring home a state championship.

They almost pulled it off.

But it quickly became apparent that the Bears, also unbeaten, weren’t going to be toyed with like other opponents.

The game was scoreless until the fourth inning. That’s when it all fell apart for the Mustangs. Winter Springs scored all three of their runs in that inning, aided by a couple of fielding errors. The Mustangs mounted a rally in the seventh, putting runners on first and third with one out. But Bears pitcher Aynslie Furbush coaxed a popup and a fly ball out to preserve a one-hitter, and Lakewood Ranch saw their hopes of a perfect season dashed by yet another shutout.

“While I think we’re the best offensive team in the country, we’ve seen three years in a row that a good pitcher can shut us down,” said Mustangs head coach T.J. Goelz, who pitched at the University of North Florida. “That’s the unlucky side of it, but it’s also the cool side of the sport. You’ve got to execute when it counts, and for 30 games in a row, we did.”

A gut-wrenching loss like that would crush the spirit of some teams. But the Mustangs aren’t your prototypical squad. For one thing, they’re loaded from top to bottom with both talent and experience. Eight of the nine starters returned as seniors this season, and all have signed to play for Division I schools. The pitching rotation has more quality depth than some college programs. Claire Davidson, Payton Kinney, and Brooklyn Lucero could all be aces on other staffs. 

Offensively, the Mustangs scored 10 or more runs in 14 of their 31 games last season, led by Goelz’s daughter Avery, a left-handed-hitting first baseman and three-time Florida Offensive Player of the Year.

Many of the girls have grown up together, and have also played on the same travel team since 8U and some 10U. Tampa Mustangs-TJ, a team also coached by Goelz, has finished third at PGF Premier Nationals three of the past four years. Such chemistry and familiarity give the Mustangs an edge other teams can only dream about.

“Playing with them all these years… you have an instinct and anticipation of what the other (player) is going to do,” explained Avery, who signed to play at the University of Florida. “That helps with every play.”

Goelz, in his third season as Mustangs head coach, became a fan of softball through his wife, Liz, a former player at North Florida who assists with the high school and travel teams. T.J. is always direct with his players and doesn’t hide from team rankings, stats, or the high expectations that come with public recognition.

“We talk about that it’s a privilege, it’s an honor,” he said. “We can embrace that with fear or failure of not living up to them, or with joy in the fact that we’re being recognized. It doesn’t happen all the time.”

In 2018, Goelz persuaded a local softball league to donate some unused office space the team could use for a bigger locker room. Last season, he created a “Play Green” theme based around the team’s green and silver colors, complete with a traffic light rigged to flash green when the team was at-bat, and red when on defense. This year’s motto is “One More”, focusing on one more rep, one more good practice, one more game each day. It’s a way of keeping the players in the present and encouraging them through the ups and downs of a season.

“It’s helped us on the mental side,” Avery said. “It’s kept us together and focused on our goal at the end.”

That goal has been a prime motivator for the entire team to work harder and remain confident. As discouraging as the three straight postseason shutouts have been, the Mustangs can take pride in the fact they have made progress each year.

“Obviously, we were all upset about that loss (in the championship),” said Kinney, who will play for Connecticut next season. “But it’s not about what we did last season, it’s not about what we did the season before. It’s about this season, right now, and it’s about us going out there and playing the best softball we can.”

So far, the Mustangs are doing just that in 2020. Through March 5, they’ve won their first seven games, outscoring their opponents by a whopping 69-3. The team is batting .435 with a .516 on-base percentage, and the pitching staff has a collective ERA of 0.17.

But Goelz and his players have been here before. They know from painful experience that it takes only one rough game or inning to turn potential triumph into heartache.

“Even when we’re up 7-0 in a game, we come in and say, “all right, it’s a 0-0 mentality,” Goelz explained. “(We) go up there, have quality at-bats, work the counts, do the stuff you’ve gotta do when it is 0-0. That’s going to happen at some point.”

When it’s all over, and the seniors have played their final game before moving on to begin a new chapter of their lives, what will it be like to leave behind a group they’ve grown up and played softball with since early childhood?

“I’ve been with these girls for five, six years now, and they’ve literally become like sisters,” Kinney said. “College is going to be a little bit of a shell-shock. But at the same time, we’re all going to keep in contact. It’s not going to be the same, but that sisterhood is still going to be there for years to come.”

It’s a bond that will never be broken, whether the Mustangs win that elusive state title or not. But right now, no one is thinking that far ahead. There’s still one more practice, one more game to play until they hopefully fulfill their dream.

Just one more.