Coaches, athletes find ways to cope
On the bus ride to Butler, Slippery Rock High School baseball coach Fred Pryor huddled with his coaches.
The Rockets were about to play Knoch in a scrimmage at Michelle Krill Field at Historic Pullman Park with the realities of the coronarvirus hanging over them like a dark, forboding cloud.
It was days before the PIAA pressed pause on the spring sports season, but Pryor saw what was coming.
Pryor said to his coaches, “We have to treat this like our seniors' last game because it very well could be.”
Pryor was prophetic.
Slippery Rock played its seven seniors for all seven innings and beat the Knights on that unseasonably warm late winter day.
“We treated it like senior night,” Pryor said.
The uncertainty and state of limbo Butler County baseball and softball teams find themselves in right now is unsettling.But for senior-laden teams — like Slippery Rock — that have high hopes for the season, the delay and possible cancellation is devastating.“It's very heartbreaking,” Pryor said. “I have seven seniors and this is my first group as coach, so it means a lot to me.“They're going to be fine men,” Pryor added. “That means more to me than winning baseball games.”Coaches are not permitted to have contact with their players, and teams cannot hold their own practices, per PIAA rules.That has made this time even more disconcerting for players.Especially seniors.
Mackenzie Dunn, a senior pitcher on the Karns City softball team, is doing her best to muddle through.At her home she has all the necessities to practice: softballs, nets, tees.And a catcher: her freshman sister, Jessica.“I've been able to work on pitching with her every other day,” Mackenzie said.But it's wearing on her.The PIAA again moved back the return to school and perhaps the start of the spring sports season two more weeks.“Everything keeps getting pushed back,” Mackenzie said. “It was two weeks and now it's another two weeks. When is it going to stop?”Karns City figures to have a strong team this season.Perhaps a historically strong team for a program that has never won a state playoff game.“This group I have this year, they could have made a heck of a run,” said Karns City coach Mike Stitt, who found it difficult not to speak of the season in the past tense. “I challenged them to be the first team to go farther in the state playoffs. It's killing us as coaches. We want to be with them and we want to be doing softball things.”To help the team get through these difficult times, rubber wristbands were made with inspirational words.Mackenzie looks at hers often.“I would play from June to August if they let us,” Mackenzie said. “I don't care.”
The Freeport baseball team is coping by mobilizing players to make two-minute instructional videos.It was the brainchild of Yellowjackets' coach Ed Carr.“I think this has always been something I've wanted to do,” Carr said. “I really want them to be shared with youth coaches and youth parents so they can do something and not be stuck inside. It's for the kids and also for the parents. We all need this. That's what we're trying to do.”Carr has a YouTube channel where he has already cobbled together 50 short videos from other sources.Now he hopes to expand on them with his players.He hopes that keeps their spirits up and thinking about baseball.“I think it's mentally draining on everyone, to be honest with you,” Carr said. “People need to see and talk to their friends.”Freeport has a slew of key seniors and also has big goals for this season.Like everyone else, Carr is in wait-and-see mode.“Honestly, at this point for me, no cancellation is good news,” he said. “A large portion of our team are seniors and I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt. In the big scheme of things, though, baseball is a tiny thing of what life is all about.”
