Glacier softball waits on fieldwork
For now, they have to wait.
As the Glacier softball team prepares itself for a new season it has gone through drills and taken advantage of the batting cage at the school. But, the field work, full infield and outfield practice, is still on hold.
Despite weather that has reached the mid-50’s this week, the Wolfpack won’t be able to access its home fields at Kidsports Complex until Monday at the earliest.
In the mean time, coaches are focusing on getting the team — literally — back in the swing of things.
“(We’re) getting back in a little bit of a rhythm,” Glacier coach Andy Fors said. “Working on the basics and fundamentals, which is something that we stress. We’re trying to introduce the new girls in our program into how we do things and just kind of getting them back in the flow.”
This looks to be a bright season for the ’Pack, which returns all but two players to a team that won the Western AA and finished third in the state last season, including all-state players Kayleena Ikeda and Ali Williams.
That group of talent looks to measure up well with some of the state’s top teams on both sides of the Divide this season.
“We’re pretty fortunate we only graduated two seniors,” Fors said.
“We return a good portion of the roster and have a good, solid freshman class that has already helped fill some of those holes. It’s looking good.”
Once Glacier hits the field, it will have a week to get ready for live action. Unlike many of the area’s Class A and B teams, Glacier and Flathead don’t open their season until next weekend in Great Falls when they play at the Class AA Jamboree.
Until then, Fors said he’s trying to bring his team back up to speed.
“There’s some challenges to it,” Fors said.
“What we try to do is set everything up on a station basis and keep the girls moving as much as we can. Their attitudes have been great. This is a great group of kids and they’re focused and ready to go. They’ve taken access to that batting cage and the pitching machines that we have inside and they’re getting great reps even though we’re not on the field yet.
“Some of the early on stuff anyway when we work through some of our teaching progressions, it works out OK being in there.”
The schedule opens up next week as Glacier starts its spring break. The softball team plans on finally getting on the field during the week to start its full range of workouts.
“We’re going to go right through it, hopefully take advantage of finally being out on the fields,” Fors said. “Try to get as many reps as we can off the bat and on dirt as we can.”
But for now, the team will have to bide its time. While they wait, they can only hope the unusually spring-like weather holds out for another few days.