AUBURN — A stroll on the golf course with one of his athletes led Chris Whitney to walk into the office of St. Dominic Academy athletic director John Yorkey.

A few months later, Whitney walked into the school’s gymnasium as the new softball coach, a title he’s never had before but one that he was more than happy to take.

“This is my first go-round in actual high school, competitive softball. Of course, you have your men’s league softballs and that kind of thing, but my background is strictly baseball,” said Whitney, who also coached the Saints’ golf program last fall. “So it’s been a learning curve, but at the same time, you know, there’s not much difference in the whole game of baseball and softball. It’s still an individual sport with the nine individuals on the field, and all that kind of stuff.

“And once you put it all together, it’s just a shrunken-down baseball field. I think girls don’t get a lot of credit, though, because softball is a lot faster, quicker decision-making.”

That strolling golfer, Emma Skofield, also happens to be the Saints’ sophomore shortstop. Talking during that stroll, Skofield told Whitney that the softball team was looking for a new coach — their third in three years. So Whitney said he decided to go talk to Yorkey, “then one thing led to another and here I am.”

Skofield was the only player on the softball team who knew Whitney before the new coach met the team a week before the preseason, so of course the rest came to her with questions and concerns about Whitney as a coach.

“I was like, ‘He’s a super cool coach. He’s so chill.’ And he’s so easy to talk to,” Skofield said. “I had no problem talking to him several times during golf.”

His approach has been a little different from the golf season, according to Skofield, but she said she knows the sports are different as well.

“The only thing really similar with this is the fact that it’s just still St. Dom’s students,” Whitney said, “and the kids are just 110 percent there to be there to compete for that team.”

The players’ commitment has been a big help for Whitney, whose work schedule has him arrive at practice at varying times. But the players are always ready when he gets there.

“I haven’t named a captain because we just have four seniors that … they’ll take the bull by the horns,” Whitney said.

That quartet — Cassie and Morgan Roy, Karrington Murphy and Mikayla Jackson — has experienced lots of coaching turnover and little success, but so far their senior season has been a positive experience.

“We’ve improved a lot from our freshmen year, even last year to now,” Morgan Roy said. “People who are freshmen, we’ve noticed a difference from the first practice to now. So it’s really huge that he’s helped us that way. Like we’ve improved a lot more than we have over the past couple years. And it’s great to have two wins now, and we’re hoping to get more.”

Two wins may not sound like a lot, but that was the Saints’ win total from a season ago. They reached that mark in just three games so far this season. Even a competitive 8-3 loss to Buckfield on Monday was “like a victory because it shows how far we’ve come and what the program is now,” Whitney said.

The season started with a victory, and Roy said “we all came together and hugged and jumped in the air.” The second win came in the second game of a doubleheader on the Saints’ next game day.

“And I know we’re going to win more,” Skofield said.

Team bonding has been a big part of the team’s early success, according to Morgan Roy.

Cassie Roy said the team gets to practice early just so they can be together, and the players have connected on “little things.”

Even Whitney has embraced the “real relaxed atmosphere” where there’s “a lot of laughs.”

Jackson, who has bounced between schools during her career, said the players have as much to do with a team’s success as the coach.

“I think, no matter what, it’s really the group of girls you’re working with and less what (the coaches) know because we’re learning as much as he is about us. So it’s kind of nice to have a different perspective on everything,” Jackson said.

To make Whitney’s first foray into softball coaching potentially even more difficult, it’s been a spring full of being stuck inside because of all the rain. But the players have handled that well, too. It’s even added another layer to them growing closer together.

“Yes, it’s been hard. A lot of injuries. (I’m) currently in concussion mode,” Murphy said. “But I think all those scrapes that we get during softball, that just makes us tougher as a person.”

“We could do a practice in the parking lot if we wanted to, but the girls work hard enough, and they want to work, and they want to get better,” Whitney said. “That’s one of the best things about it is each one of these girls wants to get better every day. And that was my main goal, is just we might be what we are at the start of the year, but where are we three games in, six games in, nine games in, and where are we come the last week of the season. And we’ve improved each and every day.”

The players’ spirits and expectations have also improved since the beginning of preseason, and from previous years.

“We have been, this whole four years I’ve been playing softball, every year has been, ‘We’re going to make it to playoffs,’ and the first couple of games do not go well,” Cassie Roy said. “But this year we do have the potential, and I like the spirit from everybody saying we can actually do this, and not hang our heads every game that we lose.”

“Last year,” Skofield said, “our main goal was just to get into playoffs, and this year our goal is to win our first playoff game, and even go farther. Like playoffs to us, its definition has changed from last year, it was crazy to even think about. And this year it’s actually a reality. It’s reachable.”

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