Bensalem softball celebrated its five seniors with a special drive-by celebration on Saturday. Photos provided by Bensalem softball. To include your team’s senior celebration, please send photos/information to SuburbanOneSports@comcast.net.
Bensalem softball was scheduled to celebrate its Senior Day Saturday with a festive day that was to include an alumni game as well as the Owls’ 
game against Council Rock North followed by a barbecue. The day coincided with the birthday of coach Dan Schram, who is in his 10th year at the helm. Plans changed with the cancellation of the season, but the day was one to remember for the five seniors – Lauren Bordone, Rachael Bardone, Haley Keenan, Chloe Munyon and Deja Seilhamer, who were honored with a drive-by that began at Cornwells Elementary School. Thirty-eight cars took part and included players in their jerseys as well as coaches and some teachers.
Coach Dan Schram says: “This group of kids, last year’s kids and moving forward with the group I have – I really reached a point where I feel so lucky as a coach because these kids are the joy of my life. They really are. I always say it’s the second greatest honor of my life to be called 
coach. I have been looking for Bensalem players for many years, and I’ve gotten all different types of kids. I’ve gotten kids who play travel and who play this and this, but these are kids that if you ask their identity – they love their school, they love their town, they play multiple sports, they’re eclectic. They’re the best – they really are, and in an era where it’s me, me me, they’re the most unselfish group of kids I’ve had, and that is not just this year’s seniors. It’s last year’s seniors and the group that follows them moving forward, and that’s why I wanted to do something of such big magnitude in such a big fashion because it means that much. It really does. Maybe it’s me getting older, and I look at it differently because with experience and time, things get better. Maybe this is what happens when you hold on long enough, but I think it’s more than that.
“I think I’m fortunate where I got a group of kids who really, really represent, kids who could get the absolute most out of a Bensalem softball team. I say this boldly – I really believe if we had our season this year it would have been a continuation of last year, and we would have rose the ranks and gone to that next level. I think we were right there. Our practices were magnificent prior to us going out for the COVID-19. This was the perfect storm. I took a lot of years trying to figure out what our identity was to make a great team. Do you have enough travel players? Do you have enough home run hitters? Do you have enough pitching and do you have enough that? But what I have is the true identity of a team, and it starts with these kids. They’re unselfish. I could go across the board with all of them. They’re the type of kids – if we’re starting practice at 1:30, they’re showing up at the field with a pick-up truck to bring the nets out, and they’re putting the nets on the pick-up truck and bringing them out to the field for you. They’re hanging signs in the outfield when we get sponsors, and they love doing it. They’re the kind of kids who when my little kids show up to the field – they’re the ones chasing them around laughing with them, rolling around in the dirt with them. They’re just flat out special, and they’re humble, they’re really humble.”
Senior Haley Keenan says: “(Coach Schram) told us he was dropping off a gift, but he never told us about the parade. He told us to be ready
between 12 and one. When he came, he gave us our gift, then he screamed, and all the cars came. He gave us our jersey from last year in a frame with a picture of us playing, and he made a sign for our lawn. It was so emotional because of everything that’s happening. It was great.
“It meant the world because of everything that’s happening – at least we all can come together during this hard time. It just shows how much everyone at Bensalem cares for us because there were even teachers there, and our basketball coaches were in the line and our trainer, Taylor. After they passed my house, I jumped in line to go to the other players’ houses.
“Not playing this season sucks a lot because it would have been the last time playing any kind of sport with my best friends, and it just stinks that we didn’t get a chance to do that and say good-bye. We talk to each other every day, but we still don’t know if we’ll be able to do other senior stuff too. This year was going to be the one for our team.”
Senior Deja Seilhamer says: “I honestly did not expect this at all. When it was happening, I was so happy. I was just expecting (coach) Schram to come to my house and say hi or whatever. A lot of my friends live in the neighborhood, and they said, ‘Wow, that was a lot of cars.’ I think this made up for missing our Senior Day.
“Our team was supposed to be really good this year. This was it for me for softball, and I was really disappointed when the season was cancelled because I’ve been waiting for this for my whole life.”
- Log in to post comments
