The women’s softball team at Guilford faced sundry difficulties this season: 1) not having a coach for nearly the first two months of practice, 2) barely having enough players to field a team, 3) a forfeit brought on by a midseason bout of illness, and 4) the awareness that recruitments for next season have not been secured. Athletic Director Marion Kirby was especially worried when the problems started to surface at the beginning of last semester.
“When Randy Doss and I were faced with the sudden resignation of the current softball coach, Ty Cook, the choice of the type of replacement that we should get was the top question . and then there was the realization that we might not have enough talent to field a team,” said Kirby.
Fall practice was beset with problems from the start. None knew better then the team captains Ciara Locklear, junior, and Kelly Guarnieri, sophomore. They were not only responsible for trying to help find a replacement, an activity that the whole team was involved in, but for leading their team in the absence of a coach.
“Even though we had a lot of the responsibility of re-staffing the position and acting as coaches, without the help of the administration and other Guilford teams, we wouldn’t have been able to pull it off,” Locklear responded.
Locklear went on to explain how Randy Doss and the soccer coach, Jeff Bateson, would stand in as coach during some of the practices and helped with uniforms and other things that the team needed to continue. Also, when the members of the softball team were lacking in numbers, two soccer players and four basketball players volunteered to help fill the needed positions.
But, when flu season hit, four women’s softball members fell ill, and they finally had to cancel their Feb. 14 game due to not having enough players to field a team.
Locklear explains, “All of these events forced us to really rely on each other, and eventually we became a more cohesive unit. Since the beginning of the season, as a group we have come together in coaching, learning and constructively criticizing each other.”
In spite of all the setbacks, the softball team has gone on to win five games and one conference game. The team has also broken the home run record for Guilford College this season. Kirby assures that this is just the beginning.
“The fact that we have so few on the team,” said Locklear, “Shores coming to us so late in the season, five wins seems to me like we are making a pretty good account of ourselves right now.”
Shores said, “Realistically, this is a learning season. When we have reached three-fourths of the way through the season, I would have been here two months total, and some of the players that we have borrowed from the basketball and soccer teams have little or no experience with softball. Next year is when we will really see the efforts of this year’s practice, but also in the recruits that we will bring in.”
Shores has contacted about 60 girls for next year’s softball team and feels that nine or 10 players may chose Guilford as their home – but that doesn’t help this season.
Guarnieri laments this fact, but is proud of what her small team has accomplished with eyes to the future saying, “We are not where we want to be, but we have high hopes for the future.