Samuel Carlson
Sports Editor
Crowder sports had a terrible ending to their season last year when COVID-19 hit and cancelled the rest of the season. The teams were in the middle of their season and sitting well with softball having the record of 22-2, baseball with the record of 23-3 and being number two in the country, luckily for women’s basketball they got their season over just in time, but they have a had a few changes for the 2020-2021 season.
Women’s basketball games were moved to the spring which is a difference for them as well as the games being shortened from 30 games to 22 games.
“It has been quite busy as we are playing almost every other day which doesn’t give you much practice time to fix things because you are always preparing for you next opponent.” Said Tina Wilson, Head Coach for the basketball team. “Despite the chaos and the many adjustments, we are all grateful to have the opportunity to play this season.” Said Tina Wilson, Head Coach for the basketball team.
Softball is also having some changes this year with their season being reduced. Their region reduced their games so they cannot play as many games as they used to in the past.
“Because of protocol, our fall season we typically play at the division 1 4-year schools to get our kids recruited, they were not allowed to play us at that point,” said John Sisemore, Head Coach for the softball team.
With games being cancelled due to COVID-19 the sports teams are having trouble getting recruited to the 4-year schools after Crowder because they do not get to play the bigger schools to show off their skills on the field.
“It affected us last year but is definitely helping us this year in recruiting because of the law jam at the division 1 schools and we are getting a lot of kickbacks and transfers in. So, it has definitely played a part in our success this year,” said Travis Lallemand, head baseball coach. Even though COVID-19 ended their season last year it played a role in their success this year with all these division 1 athletes transferring to Crowder to play baseball.
Although the baseball team have had success this year, they still lost a couple of key pitchers that they wish to have back this year, Collin Brougham and Jared Viertel. Brougham went to South Alabama and Viertel went to Missouri State.
Women’s Basketball is normally in a neutral area to play the playoffs but for this year the higher seeded teams get to host the playoff games at their home court.
Regionals for softball and baseball are different as well. A week before the actual regionals there would be a sub-regional that have teams ,just like women’s basketball, host a playoff game at their home field. Normally there are eight teams in one spot but now there will just be the traditional two teams in one spot for a game.
The actual regionals will have only four teams instead of eight teams and there would be only one game playing instead of two and the other two teams will not even be close so there is a reduced number of people in one place.
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