When Pablo Severtson closed his eyes and listened to the sweet sounds of softball, it healed him a little.
For months thanks to COVID-19, the coach of the Colorado Styxx 18-Under competitive softball team missed working with his tight-knit group of players and the beauty of the big and little things of the sport.
Severtson finally got to revel a little bit in both in June, when he was able to take the Styxx to Kansas City, Kansas, for the Top Gun Invitational.
“It was actually emotional for everybody,” Severtson said of the return to play. “When you got back out there for practice it was fun, but in a competitive setting, playing other teams and seeing fans there, it was emotional. It was like ‘Ok, we’re back,’ even as we are far from anything normal. It gives us a little normalcy.”
Yet like every other sport, nothing is normal in competitive softball during the pandemic.
Summers filled with cross country travel against elite competition trying to catch the eye of colleges coaches are a thing of the past, replaced with a toned-down version of normal.
The Colorado Fireworks tournament that filled Aurora with hundreds of elite girls 18-under and 16-under teams over the summer disappeared in favor of smaller regional tournaments across the country, allowing teams to stay close to home.
Colorado teams — with scores of players from several Aurora high schools — made do by playing in the July 1-5 Sparkler Tournament put on by Triple Crown Sports.
With parents and fans spread out along the fences — most at appropriate social distance — and not packed into bleachers and camping chairs behind the backstop, the noise was considerably less than usual at venues in Loveland and Fort Collins.
Each team had its own set of balls, traditional postgame handshakes were skipped and close contact limited, but the game went on.
Severtson — who was recently hired as the head coach at Cherry Creek — took his Styxx (which include Grandview graduate Jacque Ley and Eaglecrest grad Maddie Unrein) to Top Gun Invitational, where he said it “seemed like the virus never hit,” noting few people wearing masks and packed restaurants as signs that things were very different from Colorado.
The Styxx drove to the tournament and came prepared to keep their contact to their hotel, an occasional quick bite to eat and the softball fields. They did damage on the field, finishing seventh out of 32 teams in its bracket of teams from nine states. Assuming nothing changes, the Styxx next head to Oklahoma City July 19-25 for the ASA 18 Gold Championships.
The travel season for coach Jason Quimby’s 18-Under Colorado Angels team consists of only a trip to Kansas City, Kansas, July 9-12 for the Team 1 Fastpitch National Championships.
The Angels passed on usual trips to the Top Gun Invitational a tournament to California, confining its play to state competition thus far.
“It’s a whole new world, we’re constantly adapting and trying to deal with the new things on the horizon,” Quimby said.
Quimby has found that his work as a coach is more about the mental part with his players.
“Mental health has been become the primary concern of all of us because the disappointment is huge on many levels,” Quimby said. “I have 18s, so a lot of seniors are ending their careers, then there is the uncertainty of kids going to college and their last season together has been nothing but a roller coaster ride up and down.”
From a strictly softball perspective, Quimby has noticed that the lack of real competition, the ability to travel regularly to tournaments with top-notch competition and even lack of normal practice time has severely hindered his team’s level of play.
The Angels include two graduated Eaglecrest players in Risa Segura and Reese Waggoner along with Regis Jesuit senior-to-be Chloe Valdez.
Courtney Oakes is Sentinel Colorado Sports Editor. Reach him at 303-750-7555 or sports@sentinelcolorado.com. Twitter: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
