Athletes

It’s a tired cliché. But it’s one that the Santa Fe Community College softball team has been living the last two years.
“Our saying is ‘To be the best, you have to beat the best,’” Saints coach Chris Ahern said as her team prepares to play defending national champion Indian River Community College in Thursday’s opening round of the double-elimination state tournament. “There the best.”
A year ago, as an assistant behind then-head coach Terri Knecht, Ahern could have used the same phrase because at the time, the Saints were paired up against the 2001 national champion Lake City Community College.
SFCC lost that game 11-3 and the subsequent game, which ended the Saints’ season, but with eight players returning from that team, intimidation will be less of a fact...