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Throughout the season, members of the Virginia softball team will blog about being on the road and recent games, activities and news in and around the softball world. Third-year outfielder Casey Steffan is up next, recalling the second half of the team’s Spring Break 2008 trip to Jacksonville, Atlanta and Louisville.
After a 2-1 run in Atlanta against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, the team was pumped and ready to take on the teams at Louisville’s Red and Black Tournament. Although we knew a gloomy forecast awaited us in Kentucky, we had become accustomed to rain delays and playing in cold weather, thus remained undaunted. The seven-hour bus trip was broken up by a quick stop at Cracker Barrel (a team favorite!), as well as a mid-ride showing of “The Art of the Drop Ball ” – Coach Freed circa 1989. Mego evidently had several VHS tapes of Coach Freed pitching in the days of oversized T’s and hair scrunchies. Needless to say we were entertained.
We arrived in Louisville around midnight Thursday. We stumbled half asleep to our rooms unaware of what we would find the next morning. When my alarm went off around 9 a.m. Friday, I opened the shades to find a steady snowfall, adding to the two inches that had already accumulated on the ground overnight. Our games for the day had been canceled the night before but our practice plans now hung in the balance because Barry the bus driver doesn’t like to drive in the snow. But Barry eventually agreed to drive to the Louisville softball facility where the team took batting practice and played in the snow for a little. The snow continued to fall as we drove back to the hotel where we paired up to get in a quick “Body By Ed” workout in the hotel fitness center.
Around 5 that afternoon, Coach surprised us with a dinner from PF Changs. Thanks to the boredom that had begun to settle in, dares began on who would eat what spicy things, and eventually Carly downed a spoonful of chili sauce. We then broke off into smaller groups – some of us played Charades in the lobby while others rented “27 Dresses” in our rooms. The snow continued to fall, as various school closings, delays and traffic warnings scrolled on the bottom of all the TV monitors in the hotel. The meteorologists on the evening news promised 6-10 more inches before the end of the weekend and the storm was touted to be the largest in Kentucky in the last 10 years.
Saturday morning we awoke to even still more snow falling, the total now lingering somewhere around a foot and a half. At breakfast Coach sheepishly announced that all of our games this weekend had been canceled and we would be forced to wait out the storm in the hotel. Never ones to give up an opportunity for competition, the team decided to organize a wiffle ball game in the snow. Teams were drafted and uniform colors assigned, as we fearlessly braved the storm for three innings of very cold and wet wiffle ball. For many of the southern and California girls, this was the most snow they had ever seen, and we all indulged our inner kid as we rolled snowballs and carved snow angels. After throwing each other around in the snow for a while, we begrudgingly tromped back into the hotel where we awaited information on the trip back home.