The Columbia girls softball team may not go around bragging about this past spring season, but if things go the way first year Head Coach Lou Cicenia hopes, it will be a season they look back on and say: this is where it all started.
At 4-19, their record wasn’t pretty, but Cicenia hopes it will be the building block for something much bigger. With no place to go but up, the Cougar girls and Cicenia are excited to see what a full off-season, packed with camps, clinics, clubs and competitive games, will mean for the 2010 team.
“I’m real excited for next season. When you win four games, it can be frustrating,” Cicenia said.
At the heart of the woes for the Cougar girls was a lack of game experience and a lack of winning tradition in the softball program, according to Cicenia. The girls had trouble with all aspects of the game, but it was symptomatic of inexperience.
“I think the kids kind of looked at it as a rec program before,” Cicenia said. “Most of the season I treated it like a clinic.”
The plan is for the girls to take what they learned during the season, add it to game experience acquired through club play, and try to apply it on the field next year, when expectations will be higher.
“These kids are going to have to work nightly. They need to commit themselves 100 percent to getting better,” Cicenia said. “In the off-season they are going to have to play as many games as possible, and not just any games, but competitive games against good teams.”
Next season, it’s likely that Cicenia will be leaning on Lizzy Kling and Mary Nolet in the pitchers’ circle and also on returning starters, Megan Mathews, who Cicenia called the leader of the team and Kyrsten VanNatta, whom he described as an all-state caliber short stop.
There will be different competition next season, as the locals won’t have to fight through the tough Iron Hills Division to eke out some wins. Because of the state realignment, they'll be in the Essex Division, which will mean a new beginning. Cicenia said he will miss going up against some of the best teams in the state in the Iron Hills.
In their final game of the season against the Verona Hillbillies, Cicenia said that the girls took the first step toward becoming a team to be reckoned with and one that is respected in the county. Entering the seventh inning, ahead 7-5, Cicenia knew it would be tough to hold on for the win. Verona put runners on base and then scored and got within one. Though they threatened more, the Cougar girls shut the door and picked up win No. 4 to end the season.
“I think they understand it now. When we beat Verona, we took that next step forward. We learned how to win,” Cicenia said.
