New members add championship play to boost team wins

Winning is an integral part of playing any sport, and two Warhawk softball players have won something that not many athletes in the country have won: a national championship.

The two student-athletes in the spotlight this week are Karli Wainwright, a junior from Lake Charles, and Haley McCall, a junior out of Grand Chenier.

Both played junior college softball at LSU-Eunice, and managed to win a national championship.

McCall, an infielder, belted the first home run of the game and subsequently earned the 2011 National Junior College Athletic Association tournament MVP honors.

“You just keep playing the game over and over again in your head,” McCall said. “It’s a dream you always have as an athlete.”

Wainwright, an outfielder for the Lady Bengals, was hot on the diamond, stealing 19 bases out of 21 attempted. She also had a fielding percentage of 0.917.

“It felt like any other game at first,” said Wainwright, reflecting back on the championship game. “But in the seventh, you actually realized that it’s the big game.”

Both girls said that they were used to winning in the junior college circuit, and that confidence and high expectations carried over with them to ULM.