posted by Philip Nice

Camper Aimee Lowry smacks the ball as Miss Ivory Vendig, her counselor, spectates.

Hey there! Just got in from the softball diamond, where I’ve been for the first few days of PYC. I assisted Mr. Jason Cocomise, who has written more than a few articles for this blog. Wanted to let you know what it’s been like on the diamond this year, especially if you’ve never been to camp before.

Classes this year are for two dorms at once and last 80 minutes. We start with brief introductions and then some upper- and lower-body stretches. After that, we warm up with a three-stage throwing drill. It’s really cool to see teens improve, especially when they’ve never played before. A lot of times they are the ones who improve the most, because they are more open to being taught. Yesterday some of the girls who’d never played looked like they’d been playing league softball for years! So that’s cool.

After throwing, we break one dorm off for a set of hitting drills, and the other one for fielding practice and live hitting at home plate. I work with the batters who are on deck, giving them tips on how to hit better. Then they face Mr. Cocomise’s live pitching. I’ve seen a lot of improvement there as well—it’s super-cool to see you guys learn!

When we get halfway through, the two dorms switch. After each of them runs through the circuit, we get to do a special drill: the “Fastball Challenge”! We have a radar gun this year! So everyone gets a couple of pitches to see how fast they can throw a baseball.

Daniel Estrada and Aussie Joel Hudson-Stewart, who has never played before and got mobbed by his dorm after his record-tying pitch, both throw 70 mph! Our hardest-throwing girls are Tabitha Burks with 51 mph and Whitney Campbell at 50 mph. I was the fastest worker—for a while. Then yesterday my brother topped me with 77 mph! Mr. Turgeon, the director, announced the fastest times at dinner last night and said my brother beat me, and everybody went, “Oooooohhhhhh.” Then Mr. Turgeon quoted the scripture that says: “A brother is born for adversity,” which was hilarious.

Now we’re getting into games. We had our first one yesterday, between two girls dorms, and it was a close one. We also had open sports yesterday evening, where campers get to choose what sport they’d like to play. So we’re looking forward to a lot more good softball games! And maybe somebody will break 80!