Cougar softball – it's a hit
Cougar softball – it's a hit
By Suzanne Werre
BHG News Service
When the idea of adding girls’ softball to the list of sports offered by the Central McLean co-op came up, the Underwood School Board members were a little skeptical. Would it take girls away from the track team? Would it take them away from the golf team? Would girls want to play? Would they even like it?
The answers to the last two questions are easy – a resounding ‘yes,’ they want to play, and ‘yes,’ they liked it.
“I think it went awesome,” said Co-captain Taylor Dam-mann, who played second base. “It was so much fun.”
Fellow captain Kennedy Fricke, pitcher, agreed. It was actually Kennedy who brought up the idea of a fast-pitch softball team to Turtle Lake-Mercer’s athletic director after moving to Turtle Lake. She had previously played on the Kenmare team, and thought it was worth a try to see if Turtle Lake would add the sport. She’s glad she made the effort.
“It went really well,” she said, particularly considering it was a co-op, melding girls from Un-derwood, Turtle Lake-Mercer, and McClusky schools – girls who had never played fast-pitch softball, much less together -- into one cohesive team.
“We worked really well together on and off the field,” said Kennedy. “We got along really well.”
Taylor agreed, saying that while the actual games were fun (“well, of course, the games were fun), but it was the bus rides and the practices that were maybe even more fun.
The pre-season weather was probably about as bad as it could get for the team, the snow wouldn’t go away, and it was too wet and cold this spring. When the girls should have been out on the softball field practicing, they found themselves stuck in the gym. But that turned out to be okay, too.
Practicing in the gym was actually a lot of fun, said Kennedy. “We only had three outside practices because of the weather. It was just fun moving around in the gym, trying to figure out what we could do . . . making a field in the gym.”
There are some pretty good memories from the games, too, they agreed. The game where they were behind by eight and ended up winning by the 10-run rule. There were a couple in-the-park homers, and Taylor remembers some big double plays she was a part of.
