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By Avery Naughton
The newest addition to the CCA athletic facilities, the turf field, has benefited nearly all teams throughout the course of the new year. Field sports, including lacrosse, soccer, and field hockey, to name a few, now call the high-quality turf field home while track and field has ample space to practice.
Unfortunately, the new field is only part of the renovations to Canyon Crest’s athletic facilities stipulated by the bond measure. The bond measure calls for brand new junior varsity and varsity baseball and softball fields to be constructed. Although the demolition of the existing varsity fields were completed at the beginning of the year, there is little left but rubble where the fields once stood. Now, both the baseball and softball teams are forced to practice and at the Torrey Pines fields. Subsequently, baseball must play every game away while softball has a handful of games on their “home” turf.
Now of course, the notion of teams practicing and competing off-campus is not a new idea. Sports such as water polo, swimming, and golf practice and play at different locations every year. But for sports such as baseball and softball who have had facilities at home for the past ten years, the change can come as a disappointment, especially for the graduating seniors. On the other hand, the under-classmen appears to be more optimistic about the field change. Vanessa Ruiz, a freshman, comments that “it would be nice to have our own fields, especially for some of the seniors not having somewhere to practice in their last year of softball, but I don’t mind that much… but then I realize that at least we have something because there are a ton of girls that want to try softball but don’t even get the privilege to play at all.” Morgan McIntyre, also a freshman, adds that despite the disadvantage of not having a field located on campus, “nothing can bring us down, and this shows how committed we are to our sport.”
Despite the setback with the fields, however, both softball and baseball are off to successful starts. Baseball played their opening game against Mission Vista on Saturday the 8th and reached an overwhelming victory with a score of 10-2. Josh Dillen, a CCA Junior, attributes the win to good pitching that allowed “the bat to get back in [the team’s] hands.”
Softball also won their opening game against La Jolla Country Day with a score of 13-7. Natalie Kahn, a senior, exclaims that the victory was “awesome because everyone had each other’s backs the entire game, and we stayed focused the whole way through.”
Unfortunately, baseball lost their second game on Tuesday, March 11th with a nail-biting score of 6-5. The ending result came down to the bottom of the seventh inning, with San Pasqual narrowly taking the victory. Josh Dillen comments that the key to victory in baseball, and perhaps the reason the team came up short was that “It comes down to execution and taking care of the baseball. We had four errors and they had three.” In an upwards turn of events, baseball earned their second victory against Oceanside with a score 5-4. It is important to note that both of these games were not for league play, which begins in April. However, the games are important factors in qualifying for CIF’s.
Despite the disadvantages of not having a field of their own, both baseball and softball have had successful starts to the season.
