Take an estimated 200 high school girls representing 13 schools, mix in near triple digit temperatures and around a dozen volunteers and you have the third annual Centralia Softball Team Camp.
The event’s organizer, Jill Angell, Centralia High School softball coach, said interest in the event has been growing every year.
Angell started the event in 2008, when an unexpected rainstorm whittled down the original eight teams to four, CHS, Bevier, Blair Oaks and North Callaway.
The camp, the concept of which, said Angell, was to give teams the opportunity to play players in a lot of positions during a lot of games, must have attracted some positive attention in the high school softball community.
The next year coaches from 18 teams called Angell and said they wanted to come play. This year 24 teams signed up to play, but another round of rain-driven rescheduling whittled it down to 13 teams.
All the staff for the event was volunteer except for the paid home plate umpires, said Angell. "Volunteer infield umps, volunteer base-line markers, volunteer t-shirt sellers and volunteer scoreboard technicians," she said. "This is not a CHS camp it is a Centralia softball community camp."
Merchants such as Subway, Sonic and McDonald’s donated coupons to the visiting team packets. "Local businesses took part and were a great help," said Angell, including, she said, D&D Tire which sponsored the Centralia camp.
Besides the volunteer and community support, another thing that put a smile on Angell’s face was her team’s performance.
They won seven and lost one in their camp. Their only loss was to the Sturgeon-based Crossfire team.
Crossfire played four games and went 3 and 1.
Hallsville went zero for four.
The games were limited to either one hour or four to five innings.
Another wrinkle Angell added is that each inning starts with a runner on base.
"We want them to have fun and play a lot of ball," she said by way of explanation, "but the runners help give them some pressure situations."
Another benefit of the event’s format she said is that with as many as 10 games possible, it gives a coach a chance to mix and match players to get an idea of who plays well at what position and how others play off of that positioning.
"It’s the opportunity to try a lot of different kids in a lot of different positions," said Angell.
She said the camp environment gave her and other coaches the opportunity to really look at their players and play. "In comparison, one double-header a week, you really don’t see a lot."
Centralia scored 97 runs during the tournament.
"I’m proud of them," said Angell. "They hit the heck out of the ball."
Another element of the Panthers’ game that pleased her was speed. "Running the bases, smoother base running," said Angell. "That’s something I saw a lot of, we’re going to be fast this year."
Another thing that pleased Angell, she said, was the performance of her five pitchers Baylee Douglass, Ashley Hill, Sydnae Hatton, Morgan Creel and Amber Duncan.
There also were some things she said she saw that could use a little more work.
Mainly, she said those were aspects of defensive focus. "Running down fly balls and taking their eyes off them at the last second, running down grounders and looking at where they are going to throw instead of tracking the ball," said Angell. "Those are things we can fix so we can win one-run ball games that we lost."
The Panthers were also without the services of outfielder Emily Crow and infielder Jennifer Mills during the camp because of health issues. "They would have made a huge difference in our play," said Angell.
After the camp, she said she felt positive about her goal for the upcoming season, winning conference and district championships and competing at the state level.
Then she brought the discussion back to the community’s support for the team camp. "We’re all grateful to everybody who took part and helped," said Angell. "The businesses, the volunteers, the park department. When everybody does their part you all come out smelling like a rose and the community looks really good."