By Santi Elbow
The Edgewood College softball team only played six of their 10 scheduled games at the Tucson Invitational Games over spring break in March.
Mackenzie Hoffman, a freshman on the team, said originally they were supposed to play 10 games. “Our break got cut a little short due to some weather conditions, so we ended up only playing six games,” she said.
According to Coach John Richards, three things delayed the trip to Tucson, Ariz. There was a large storm in Denver on the Wednesday before the team was set to leave, Southwest Airlines had technical problems, and the government pulled some flights.
Because of the delay, the team did not have much downtime or opportunity to sight see. “Due to the mountainous scenery, it was kind of like sight-seeing because everywhere you went, you could see the landscape,” Hoffman said.
Hoffman said all the teams were tough. “I was concerned when we played UW-La Crosse because they are bigger schools which means they have more girls on their teams. That makes for tougher competition because of numbers.”
The tournament, called Tucson Invitational Games, ran from March 18-20. The size of the tournament, which was originally 10 games, is big for a softball tournament, spread out over a week, Hoffman said. “It is two games a day which would end up being a lot.”
A lot of the teams involved in tournament were from Wisconsin.
Baseball team’s bus breaks down
The baseball team went to Fort Myers, Fla., and the bus broke down.
Ryan Gale, a freshman on the team, said the bus malfunctioned when the team got to its hotel in Florida.
“I think it was because our cooling stopped working so it started to overheat,” Gale said. “We were able to get a loaner bus from one of the other teams that was down there, and we ended up getting a new bus brought into us so that we could continue to get to our games when we needed to.”
The incident did not cause any setbacks or problems with the schedule at the Gene Cusic Collegiate Classic.
The Gene Cusic Classic “draws nearly 100 men’s and women’s National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III softball and baseball teams, and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) softball teams, to participate in regular season games during spring break. Most of the teams come from cold weather states, and umpires arrive from across the nation.,” according to their website.
Gale said there was no winner. “We got to play six or seven teams.”
Tennis team trip goes smoothly
The Edgewood College tennis team drove to Spring TennisFest at Hilton Head, S.C. for its spring trip, according to Alicia Picard a junior on the women’s team.
There was plenty of sight-seeing, according to Picard. “Our house was two minutes away from the beach, so a lot of time was spent at the Public Coligny Beach as a team and exploring the shopping center,”
Picard said a lot of the same teams attend each year.
The tournament is mainly for D3 schools, but a few D2 schools and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) also enter the tournament, including “UW-La Crosse, UW-Whitewater and Wisconsin Lutheran to name a few.
Picard said the team did mini tennis camps to raise money for the trip.
“We hosted a date night for parents to get away and leave their kids for two hours,” she said. “We would teach them basic tennis skills, have dinner and do a few activities with them.
“This was all for food and shopping more than transportation since we all drove there in our own cars as a team.”
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