PERRY, Ga. — After completing a three-peat championship run in 2019, the Westfield School Hornets softball team is back on campus preparing for 2020 and another title run. Unlike many public and private schools which are limited in what they can do to prepare for the fall, GISA schools like Westfield do not face the same restrictions.
For head coach Danny Camp, the ding of bat on ball has been a welcome sound after two months of not seeing his athletes.
"I was coming up here a couple days a week just cutting the fields and it was just different you know? No kids, you don't hear the crack of the bat or the whistles out there at the track or on the soccer field. It's just nice to be back," Camp said.
The Westfield School Hornets are coming off their third straight championship and are poised for a fourth after losing only one senior from last year's ball club and bringing in a strong freshman class.
"There is some pressure, there is. We're ready to accept the challenge and we're just ready for our senior year," said Meg Hiley, one of eight seniors on the 2020 team.
"Even though we're working out with only eight at a time, that sense of normalcy, it just kind of seems like we've picked up where we left off," said Camp.
While the GHSA set a mandate of safety rules, including a cap of 25 athletes or less and multi-sport athletes sticking to one conditioning group, Camp said the GISA has left the safety decisions to its member schools.
"I can only have eight. I can't have 20, but at least I can have a bat and ball," Camp said. "It makes things easier on the softball diamond for sure."
Westfield set a cap of eight boys and eight girls on campus at a time. Multi-sport athletes can practice with each of their teams and a time gap is left to appropriately sanitize equipment between groups.
Unlike the GHSA's standard of no sports equipment, Westfield can practice with bats, gloves and balls. Hiley said she doesn't mind the smaller groups because she's seeing big results.
"I really do miss everyone, but we get a lot more work done with a small amount of people so either way we're going to get ready for the season," Hiley said.
While the softball team is limited to just eight girls when they workout for now, Camp said the school is considering expanding that number as more information on COVID-19 becomes available and as more things in Georgia open up.