Here is a Fall season update from Head Softball Coach Jason Lindgren
Softball wrapped up our fall playing just short of 15 Scrimmages, wrapping it up with a recruiting/scrimmage weekend in Lethbridge, AB where we saw 4 recruits and had good conversations with the Coaches from Mount Royal University and University of Lethbridge about them recruiting our players back to Canada when they finish their 2 years here. We are working on them helping us and us helping them with a little Canadian feeder program which would be beneficial to all, athletes and schools combined.
In these scrimmages we were able to see the players we brought in this fall along with our current players and it really looks like we found a pretty good mix of talented athletes to fill all the spots we need. We didn't get everyone in this fall that we had wanted and are still working on bringing in 1 - 3 more at semester break to help us with our numbers January through March when we don't get much from our dual sport Hockey players.
Our pitching by committee stood up for the most part to the competition and we are developing a catcher from in house as well. Defensively when we have everyone healthy and available we are very strong in the Outfield and in many spots around the Infield as well. With our short numbers we had some issues with defense where timing is critical, it's difficult to tell if you got the runner at 3rd and 1st just using "ghost runners" and a stop watch but we are working on ways to perform under the pressure of a clock in our heads that will tell us we can make the play or not. It was nice as we had some of the Hockey girls come and do some base running for us at practice to just help with the visualization of real speed and that was an important too for us about mid-way through the fall schedule.
Offensively we have a nice mix of power and speed and look to make things happen on the offensive side of things when everyone is there and we can really turn the right switches on to score runs in bunches.
With players from North Pole Alaska to South Houston Texas and from St. Helens Oregon to Carmen Manitoba and just about everywhere in between, it took a little getting used to everyone's style of play and practice but we've got most of that worked out and just look forward to seeing the best of these young athletes this spring.
We also hosted the Annual Par 3 Golf Tournament and were able to raise a nice amount of money there for our fundraising obligations.
This Winter we look to host some Pitching and Hitting Clinics at the CTC to help our players understand what we are teaching, but also to raise some more money for our program and to help the surrounding area youth and programs as well.
Along with those fundraisers, look for us in the community as we volunteer to help those people and programs that need our assistance.