LANCASTER, N.Y. — The Lancaster softball team has already hit its first target this season, repeating as ECIC Div. I champions.  

But the Legends surprised even themselves with a perfect 20-0 record in the regular season. 

"It's been amazing. I've been on the team for so long, and finally as a senior you're a leader, we're going undefeated and still going strong," senior shortstop Kara Paradawoski said. "No setbacks. Everyone picks everyone up and it's just an amazing feeling to finally be at this point."
 
While it wasn't always easy, Lancaster's perfect mark has them sitting atop the New York State Sportswriters Association rankings in Class AA.
 
And as coaches are known to do, Kelly Ambrose hoped to avoid her team finding out and potentially falling victim to the hype.
 
"I tried to keep it a secret from them. They actually knew about it," she said. "I felt like all right, we're going to take this pressure head on, and we're going to say hopefully we've earned this ranking and every day we want to go out and prove why we're ranked that way."
 
Once the players learned of the top billing, they say they chose to embrace it.
 
"The insensity that we all felt was so amazing," junior catcher Olivia Kincanon said. "We all freaked out. It was so cool to know that we were actually No. 1 in the state, let alone No. 1 in our division."
 
Now it's time to prove it in the postseason, where recent disappaointment is driving the Legends to chase the program's first Section VI title in 14 years.
 
"Losing in that first game (in last year's playoffs) obivously was tough and it was hard to say goodbye because we knew were a strong team and we knew we should've gone further," junior pitcher Jenna Patterson said. "So it's definitely giving us more motivation for this season."
 
"The past two years we've lost in the first round so this year we really wanted to step it up and try to go even farther," Paradowski said. "Now being undefeated as far as we are, we really want to keep pushing to try to keep that going as long as possible."
 
They haven't lost yet, so why start now?  The pursuit of perfection continues in the playoffs next Tuesday.