Valley City Times-Record

July 2009

Fastpitch softball taking over

Thursday, 02 July 2009

Sample Image

Kassidy Ronningen, age 12, delivers a pitch as Demi Olstad, 12, waits her turn during practice on Wednesday for the Valley City Parks and Recreation fastpitch softball program. VC Parks and Rec. made the switch from slowpitch to fastpitch this summer. (Mark Potts/VCTR)

By Mark Potts, Valley City Times-Record

The equipment is the same, but the speed, mentality and strategy... that’s a whole other ballgame.
This summer, for the first time, Valley City Parks and Recreation youth participants are playing fastpitch softball, a big shift from the traditional game of slowpitch.
“It’s something we’ve been talking about for a few years,” said Tyler Jacobson, director of VC Parks and Rec. “With the North Dakota High School Activities Association sanctioning (fastpitch) this year, we felt like it was the right time to switch.”
Fastpitch is a growing trend in North Dakota. Locally, Valley City, Enderlin and Central Cass all started high school teams in recent years, and Jacobson said a number of parks and recreation programs have started to make the switch.
“Fastpitch is really what’s going on around the state,” he said. “Talking to a number of my peers, all across the state programs are switching.”
Valley City State women’s softball head coach Chad Slyter said the trend towards fastpitch is long overdue.
“It’s definitely something the college coaches have been waiting for,” said Slyter, whose current roster includes two girls from North Dakota, five from Manitoba and seven from Minnesota. “It’s going to make North Dakota kids more recruitable down the road.”
“I think we’re catching up to the rest of the United States and Canada,” Slyter said. “North Dakota has been a little bit behind in sticking with slowpitch, and I don’t know why that is.”

Several different VC teams
The VC Parks and Rec. now offers fastpitch for girls ages 8-14. Ages 8-10 play a modified style of fastpitch to get them started in the game, while two Under-12 teams and one Under-14 team play full-blown fastpitch, traveling to places like Fargo and West Fargo for games.
Jacobson said 38 girls are enrolled in the Ponytails, for ages 8-10. The girls form four teams and play against each other. Thirty-one girls participate on the U-12 and U-14 teams that travel.
The number of participants are down from slowpitch, but the drop was expected in the first year of the program.
“Our numbers are down,” said LC Kjelland, assistant coach for the U-12 and U-14 teams. “We lost a lot of the older girls. They’ve played slowpitch all their life and just didn’t want to make that change for the last few years.”
Not enough older girls signed up to field complete Under-16 or Under-18 teams, so Jacobson said it wasn’t viable to form those teams.
Not to be left out, some of the older girls and their parents pushed for a club team – independent of the Parks and Rec. – which is coached by Slyter, and Jason and Misty Lindgren, the high school coaches.
Slyter said the team is made up of 15 girls, ages 14-18. Ten are from Valley City, while three girls from Devils Lake, one from Cooperstown and one from Enderlin play on the team.

Early success
While the game is very new to most the girls, they’ve already found great success. Both of Valley City’s U-12 teams are 4-2 on the season, and the U-14 team is 5-3. The club team of older girls is 3-4 on the summer and placed second last Friday at a tournament in Bismarck – beating Bismarck’s U-16 and U-18 teams, and losing to Minot’s U-18 team.

For full story see Friday's edition of the Valley City Times-Record.