Rain Leads To Chaotic Schedule For Teams

Posted: May 14, 2016
By WALT MOODY
The Winchester Star

Baseball and softball coaches know that the schedule at the beginning of the season is more of a suggestion than anything set in stone.

The weather in March and April usually forces several cancellations.

This May? Well that’s another story.

And after weeks of where Mother Nature has taken a rainy dislike, area coaches and athletic directors are scrambling to get conference games played before Tuesdays cutoff date before conference tournament brackets are decided.

“I haven’t seen anything like it,” said James Wood softball coach Todd Baker, whose team has not played since April 27. “Plus, I’m a farmer full-time so I pay attention to the weather. A stretch like this one this late is pretty unusual. We’re always struggling at the beginning of the year and everyone is stuck in the gym for awhile. Usually the first time you see dirt is at a game somewhere. Usually by now, the infields are hard.”

“Never in my in my 34 years of coaching baseball have I seen anything like this,” Sherando baseball coach Pepper Martin said. “In years past, we’ve had more rainouts, but it was rain on the day of a game and we had to postpone it. From what I gather from the newspaper, we’ve had some rain for 17 straight days or something like that.”

“This is a little bit unusual,” Millbrook baseball coach Brian Burke echoed. “In fact, I was thinking about it today that usually we’re slotting games that we missed in the beginning of the season around these dates. Now we’re in a situation where we’ve had to drop a few games from the schedule in order to get conference games accounted for and we’re still obligated to play our district games as well.”

It’s gotten so desperate that most area baseball and softball teams have scheduled doubleheaders within the past week. Several of those have been rained out, too.

Martin’s team has played just once since April 25 and has seen seven games postponed. Woodgrove, one of the Warriors scheduled opponents today, is headed to Harrisonburg for a 3 p.m. start, then turning around and driving to Stephens City for a tentatively scheduled 7 p.m. game.

“It’s particularly frustrating with our field,” said Martin, who team has four games scheduled over the next four days. “It’s back in the corner and surrounded by the woods and it does not dry off or drain as well as we’d like it to. … Our practice [Friday] consisted of working on the field for two hours and 45 minutes in the batting cage.”

Coaches are willing to go to whatever lengths necessary to get the remaining conference games played.

“I think by doing it we’re doing what is expected of us,” said Burke, whose squad has a doubleheader against Sherando and James Wood scheduled for Tuesday. “That’s our obligation to play the conference games, especially the conference counters. I think as a conference that takes priority, albeit it’s difficult to match up teams with dates. … I think it makes us look good in the state and the region that we’re making every effort that we can to fulfill the obligation of that conference schedule.”

Burke acknowledges it’s been a bigger headache for the athletic directors who have been juggling the schedules. He said AD Scott Mankins has made his job easier.

“That’s been really helpful in alleviating my stress from this whole thing,” Burke said. “I’’m not worried about an athletic director sticking a game somewhere that has me trying to figure out who is going to pitch and how I’m going to meet the Virginia High School League’s pitching rules.”

There’s already plenty of stress to go around as the coaches try to get ready for the Conference 21 West Tournament.

“Going into the conference tournament, you kind of worry about starting over almost,” Baker said. “Especially for younger teams that you feel like they have reached their peak a little bit, now you worry how players are going to handle it going in. It can be tough.”

Baker said the numerous rainouts have been frustrating.

“You prepare for a team and the game gets rained out,” said the Colonels coach, whose squad is 12-4, 2-1 in the conference. “We’re like, ‘OK, next game is up. This is the team we’re going to prepare for and then that game gets rained out.’ Then you get to the point where it’s so wet that you know you’re not going to play for awhile.

“So, then you’re almost back to a workout schedule to where you’re going back to basics. It’s attention to detail and trying to cover every little thing you can. I realized four or five days ago that we may not play again until we get to the tournament. Looking at our field today — at practice we weren’t on the field — it’s still in pretty bad shape. There’s more rain [today] I understand it’s a good possibility on Tuesday.”

It’s frustrating for baseball, too.

“You’re limited in gym space and maybe you get to an outdoor cage on occasion in between the raindrops, but you still can’t get out on the field,” said Burke, who had a fungo golf tournament this week to break up the monotony.

Burke, whose team is 14-2 overall, is more concerned about the consequences of an incomplete conference season.

“You do worry about having another extended layoff, but the main worry is not getting all of the conference games played and what results are in that,” he said. “The result as I understand it is that if not everyone gets their regular-season conference games played, then only the two teams that reach the championship on the 24th will be eligible to play in the regional tournament. As a team that’s sitting 4-0 right now with one game to play and has a potential automatic berth, as a coach I worry about that.”

“We want to try to get a clear-cut winner as much as everybody else” agreed Martin, whose team is 11-5, 2-0 in the conference. “We’re doing all we can to get them in.”

Still there will be some challenges for the players, especially the hitters who have faced little live pitching.

“I think hitting across the board will be a little behind like it normally is at the beginning of the season because pitchers usually are ahead of the game,” Baker said. “… A lot of these girls haven’t seen live pitching in almost two weeks. I think you’ll see offenses struggle more than anything else.”

“Pitchers always seem to be ahead of hitters early in the game when you’re coming out of your tryout period and first week or two of games,” Burke added. “I always feel like pitching is going to dominate the game. I kind of feel like that’s where we are now all over again. The pitchers are still doing their bullpens and the hitters aren’t seeing live pitching.”

Martin also is concerned about defense. His team was fielding at a .950 clip before the rains came.

“Defensively, if you look at a couple of the games that did get played in not very good conditions the last few days there were a number of errors,” Martin said. “We want to try to limit that as much as we can. The games that we are playing are of great importance and we can’t give the teams that we’re playing extra outs.”

Baker said his club craves sunny weather and a game.

“They’re just ready to play somebody again,” he said. “I don’t think it really matters who it is at this point.”

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