BEATRICE, Neb. - For softball fans, players, or coaches it’s tough to find a more exhilarating moment, than the ball clearing the fence for a home run - something Beatrice softball has done 49 times this season.

“Potentially I thought this could be a year we hit 60-70 to be honest,” Gary Lytle said. “We’ve had a good year and we have the quality kids that can go off and one weekend we had 10 home runs in one weekend.”

Lady Orange Head Coach Gary Lytle says the 25-4 Big Orange have a big advantage, through a deep lineup that features four players in the Top 30 for home runs across the state.

One of those is catcher Sadie Hereth, who leads the Lady Orange with a dozen. She says the success has come from a mix of hard work and fun in the dug out.

“Inside, outside, middle we work on that every time in we’re in the cages,” Hereth said. “We help each other out, cheer each other on, and leads us to do something good in the box.”

With 49 homers on the year, Beatrice is just eight away from the school record. Junior Karrigan Henrichs says it would further validate the teams success from last years state title.

“Winning state, we proved something about ourselves,” Henrichs said. “Coming back and proving we got better in the offseason is definable cool and having that number and name next to the record would be proving all of that.”

The current record sits at 56 homers set by the Lady Orange team of 2020.

Lytle says there’s several comparable between this years team, last years state championship team, and the group that holds the record.

“Athletically, we had three or four girls that could steal a base at any time, this team has three or four girls that can steal a base at any time,” Lytle said. “Coaching both groups as much as I have, both teams mentally were a lot the same as well.”

While it’d be a nice accolade to hold Henrichs and junior Tatum Tempelmeyer say it’s not at the top of their minds - what is, is getting the ball in play.

“We’ve proven that those hits will come,” Tempelmeyer said. “We just have to focus on putting the ball in play because we have the power to hit it out.”

“We know we have the capability, but thinking a lot about home runs is when we’re going to start not being able to hit them,” Henrichs said. “So just thinking about hitting the ball hard and hitting it where it needs to be put.”

The Lady O have one more regular season contest remaining, a visit to Plattsmouth on Thursday night.