- June 14, 2025
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The Sarasota High softball team had to fall apart before it could become a champion.
Sarasota hit rock bottom in a 7-4 loss to Venice in the Class 7A-District 12 semifinals on April 29. At that point, the Sailors were unsure if their regular season record was enough to send them on to the regional tournament.
Arguments and finger-pointing ensued, but when Sarasota found out it had made the 7A-Region 3 tournament via an at-large bid, the Sailors received new life and a fresh perspective.
Playing with nothing to lose, Sarasota overpowered its opposition in regionals.
The Sailors defeated Venice in a 7-6 quarterfinal win. Then, Sarasota went up to Clermont East Ridge and defeated the top-seeded Knights 8-7.
They completed that regional run — and advanced to the final four for the first time since 2015 — with an 8-3 win over Riverview Sumner at Sarasota High School on May 15.
Next up for Sarasota is a 7A state semifinal game against top-seeded Wellington at Boombah-Soldiers Creek Park in Longwood on May 23 at 2 p.m.
“We were absolutely broken after the loss to Venice,” Sarasota softball coach Heather Mushrush said. “That was probably the worst thing we’ve ever experienced, honestly. It was like intersquad kind of turmoil. When we had another chance, we sat down in the room over here, and thought, ‘You know what, this is our second chance. This is our chance to do something,’ and every one of these 14 girls have been locked in.”
The Sarasota softball program has been regarded as one of the area’s best for years, but it has taken steps back for some stretches.
The Sailors won their first and only state championship in 1999 and made the regional playoffs in 2000 and 2001, but didn’t return to the regional playoffs again until 2010.
That year started a streak in which the Sailors made it to the regional playoffs in seven of the next eight years, including a 2015 season in which it made it to the 7A state championship game before losing to Tate (Cantonment).
That served as the high point for Sarasota softball for several years.
Though the Sailors returned to the regional playoffs in 2016 and 2017, they exited in one game both of those years.
After another four-year hiatus from the postseason, Sarasota made it to the regional playoffs from 2021-23, but advanced to the regional final just once (2021) in that span.
As a result, the Sailors have been knocked down the totem poll of area softball over the past decade.
Lakewood Ranch softball won back-to-back state championships in 2021 and 2022, Parrish Community is currently seeking its third straight state championship and Venice has ended Sarasota’s season in two of the past four years.
Now, Sarasota has reaffirmed that it’s still one of the top teams in southwest Florida.
“Hopefully it put us back on the map a little bit,” Mushrush said of the regional championship, her first with Sarasota since she was hired in 2019. “I mean, it’s always been hard with districts always changing. With all of the new housing being built out in the Parrish and Lakewood Ranch area, it’s hard, you know, where things are expensive (here).”
The Sailors have been building toward this playoff run for the past three-plus years.
Sarasota’s seniors have never experienced a losing season, but haven’t had much to show for it in the way of playoff success. That’s why adversity hit so hard when the Sailors were eliminated in their first district tournament game.
Those years of hard losses are also why the Sailors were able to come back together with a fresh perspective.
“I think that loss was our lowest point of the year,” senior centerfielder Sommer Speers said. “Everything kind of just fell apart. Once we found out we got a bid to regionals, it kind of slowly started to come back together, and then our first game back we were in go mode.”
Losing to Venice might have been exactly what Sarasota needed.
Now, Musrush said the Sailors are playing “loose and having fun,” and it’s hard to not have fun with the way they’ve been hitting.
Sarasota has averaged 9.57 runs per game this season and scored seven or more runs in each regional playoff win.
The lineup opens with left-handed hitters Gianna Williams (.488 on-base percentage) and Speers (.579 on-base percentage) to set up RBI-machine Ashlan Guengerich, who has knocked in 51 runs in 28 games.
If Guengerich doesn’t get the job done, seniors Carley Ramsden (.390 batting average and four home runs) and Mady Pint (.373 batting average and five home runs) are up next.
But even though the Sailors are posting some eye-popping stats this season, they’ve learned by now that worrying about hits, runs and RBIs isn’t going to lead to playing championship-level softball.
“We want to make sure we all play for each other instead of for ourselves,” Geungerich said. “It’s not all about the stats. It’s about having fun and staying with each other. That’s what our biggest thing was, especially in the loss to Venice. Nobody had fun, and that’s not what we want. Going up there and beating them was a huge moment for us and we want to keep that momentum.”
