Departing: Contributed by Coach Steve Smith
The Wildcats are ready to begin the 2018 season! We departed on the Annual Spring Trip with the 国产哟哟 Softball Team for the 12th time since 2001. The team has been looking forward to the trip since the beginning of the school year. We will be playing nine games on the trip and enjoying the great weather while visiting museums, attractions and working to be a better team. The time we spend traveling in our van will give us time to bond, laugh, sing and enjoy each other. This group has raised the funds to travel and ultimately play eight to nine games. For those teams that have gone before us, many of you have great memories of building friendships, connections and playing a game we all love.
This trip will take us through nine states and the District of Columbia to our final destination of Myrtle Beach, SC. This is the beginning of our team’s season and many fantastic moments will take place with this trip being a great start.
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Day One: Contributed by Lauren Vallee '18
Hey Everyone! My name is Lauren Vallee, a senior shortstop on the softball team. Every year, the softball team packs a van and drives down to Myrtle Beach, SC to kick off the spring season. We typically play against schools from all over the country.
The first day of this trip consisted of a 500-mile drive to Petersburg, VA where we stayed overnight to rest up for the remainder of the ride. During the drive, there were plenty of laughs, a whole lot of jamming to music, and some snoozing as well. We made it to Petersburg in just about 13 hours which included a pit stop in New Jersey, lunch break in Delaware, a self-guided tour of the National Mall in Washington, DC, and a dinner break at Qdoba Mexican Grill before reaching our hotel. We made GREAT time as we hit very little traffic along the way.
Accompanying us on this trip is “Hank the softball” who you will see in many of our pictures. He’s the newest addition to our team and we are glad he’s making the trip down with us. That’s a wrap for day one! Stay tuned for details on the rest of our trip. GO WILDCATS!
Day Two: Contributed by Lilly West '20 & Felicia Gaillardetz '20
Hey everyone, this is Lilly West and Felicia Gaillardetz! We are both sophomores and this is our second trip to Myrtle Beach. Today, we woke up and had breakfast at 8:00 a.m. After breakfast, we hit the road to finish the last four hours of the car ride. On our way, we napped, listened to music, and saw lots of animals. We stopped at South of the Border to stretch our legs and we took our annual picture with the Hotdog dog! We arrived at the hotel around 3:00 p.m. and visited the beach while coach checked us into our rooms.
After dropping our stuff off in the rooms, we went to practice at the South Carolina Sports Complex where we will be playing our games this week. After dinner at Friendly’s, we went grocery shopping and finished off the night with some team bonding games and a nice hot shower. Keep an eye out for Kat and Marissa’s post tomorrow!
Day Three: Contributed by Marissa Sarna-McCarthy '19 & Katrina Peck '19
Hello, this is Marissa and Kat. We are juniors on the softball team, and this is now our third trip to Myrtle Beach! Unfortunately, our games today were canceled due to the rain, so we found ourselves on a few adventures. First, we attended the South Carolina Hall of Fame! As we walked through the aisles of many respected individuals, a few stood out to the team: Colonel Charles M. Duke Jr., General Thomas Sumter, William Henry Drayton, Bobby Richardson, Lucile Godbold, Ronald Erwin McNair, John Birks Gillespie, Richard Riley, Anne Young, and Maude Callen. We found it to be an eye-opening experience learning about all of the people featured in the museum who contributed and achieved so many great things.
The woman who stood out to me the most was Anne Young. She was a woman who drove to become a physician and was successful despite the hardships she faced along the way. Anne was frowned upon because she wanted to be a “woman physician.” People referred to her as “that crazy Anne Austin.” Anne was a successful obstetrician-gynecologist and delivered over 10,000 babies. Alongside such accomplishments, she also worked as a mental retardation physician making a difference for those who needed extra assistance.
I believe she stood out to me the most because she fought for her success as a woman in a male-dominant era. To me, she represents what we strive for at 国产哟哟: women empowerment and success.
After visiting the South Carolina Hall of Fame, we visited the South Carolina Water Convention. At the Convention, we met many different vendors and learned a lot about water purification. My favorite vendor was the Fuzzy Filter. At the stand, we met John K. Shepherd who is the Vice President of Technology at Schreiber Pure Integrity. Schreiber is a water treatment company based out of Trussville, Alabama. He was very excited to talk about his Fuzzy Filter and it was interesting to learn about because it wasn't like the membrane filters we saw. All of the vendors we talked to were very interested in 国产哟哟 and they kept asking what a softball team was doing at a water conference. They seemed to really like that 国产哟哟 athletes were interested in their work. The visit to the water conference was not planned, but it was a great experience.
Later in the day, we visited Ripley’s Aquarium. The aquarium had all sorts of fun exhibits and I even got to hold a horseshoe crab! I also learned that the horseshoe crab is a closer relative to a scorpion than a crab. The aquarium also let us touch their rays and jellyfish. They had different types of jellyfish and I learned that you can tell if a moon jellyfish is male or female based on the color in the center of them.
Day Four: Contributed by Taylor Feraco '20 & Bekah Walker '21
Hi everyone! My name is Tay. I'm a sophomore majoring in forensic science, and I play first base. Hello there! My name is Bekah, I am a first-year exploratory student, and I am a utilities player.
It’s the fourth day of our trip and our first day of games! We started the day off with breakfast after a long night of High School Musical and Camp Rock. Then, we had about two hours of free time, so a few of us went to the beach to test the waters (it was cold), and took quite a few pictures.
After our free time, we packed our lunches and headed out to the first two games of spring training. Although we lost both of them, they were a great learning experience for all of us. Hank loved watching us!
Game 1: 0-6
Game 2: 1-8
Once the games were done, we headed back to the hotel to shower, relax, and eat some pizza. We finished the night with ice cream and then headed to bed early because Day Five has a lot in store!
