Iowa high school softball wrapping up historic season
FORT DODGE, Iowa (BVM) — Like it has for countless years, the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union (IGHSAU) State Softball Tournament is about to take place in Fort Dodge.
However, this year the road to Fort Dodge has been anything but normal. It has been an up-and-down season filled with new obstacles no team has had to face before.
Even with that, if you ask any of the teams that has made it this far and even the ones whose seasons ended in a loss, all of them would talk about how lucky they feel just to have played.
“For me, it’s grateful and proud. Those are the two things that will always come to mind about this year and this team,” Muscatine Muskies coach Steve Hopkins said. “For a while, we didn’t think we were going to have it.”
Up until May 20 there was complete uncertainty as to whether there would even be a season. All sports in the country had basically been canceled or suspended indefinitely due to COVID-19.
It was at that time that Iowa announced that it would proceed with having summer baseball and softball, beginning June 1, with added measures to ensure everyone’s safety.
“It went from hope to excitement because we were going to have a season,” Fort Dodge Dodgers coach Andi Adams said. “Then the numbers (of cases) went up so then it was devastation because we heard the rest of the season was going to be canceled and we’re going to wait for the fall. Then it went back to hope again.”
It wasn’t just the rollercoaster of whether the season was going to happen that created a new obstacle for teams to overcome. It was also the way that they had to go about the season to limit the risk of getting COVID-19.
“There are a lot of things that you have to deal with this year than you would through a normal season,” Hopkins said. “The restrictions that you can’t use a dugout during practice. We have to keep all the equipment clean and sanitized. We have to social distance.”
Even after all precautions are taken, there is still the chance of a team member testing positive for the disease. When that did happen, teams had to pause their season for 14 days and quarantine.
“You still are worried,” Adams said. “You’re worried every single time you go to practice. You are worried every single time you go to games. I mean it’s just awful. We’ve had people canceled for us just out of the blue on the same day.”
The most notable example of that was Dowling Catholic shutting down both its baseball and softball teams after a baseball player tested positive. At the time of the shutdown, the Maroons baseball team was ranked No. 1 in 5A.
However, the rest of the season carried on and the players involved showed amazing adaptability, quickly accepting this “new normal” and then going back to being regular ball players.
“I think that the girls have been really resilient, very positive and doing exactly what they should do,” Adams said. “I mean it’s hard and it’s stressful and I think they’re handling it quite well.”
The Dodgers finished the season ranked No. 1 in the state for 5A and then carried that momentum into the postseason. They beat Sioux City North, 12-0, in the Region 1 championship and secured the No. 1 seed for the state tournament.
“I think now with this being their third state tournament I think they’re ready,” Adams said.
Fort Dodge is also ready to avenge a quick exit in last year’s tournament to the eventual state champions with a long run to the finals.
The Muskies want to make a deep run as well starting this Monday, but for them, it’s about turning around a program.
“We realized we have a special group and this could be a special season for us,” Hopkins said. “I think we have a chance to make some noise up there in Fort Dodge.”
Muscatine hadn’t made it to state the last seven years leading up to this season. With the goal of restarting the winning tradition the program once had, the Muskies won the Mississippi Athletic Conference.
They went on to play Iowa City High School in the Region 8 championship where after an eight-run sixth inning, they beat the Little Hawks, 14-3.
The Muskies enter the 5A state tournament as the No. 6 seed and on the opposite side of the bracket to the Dodgers.
As they prepare for their final games, both teams realize how special their season has been. As so many others have lost their own athletics, they were able to find a way to safely play the sport they love.
“Do I think it’s a success? Absolutely,” Adams said. “The fact that we were able to go out and play and have a season in general made us feel grateful more than anything.”
