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By ALEX KUHN
Sports Editor 

Lady Warriors open season at home vs. Cody on Tuesday

 

March 23, 2023

Calista Day

After a few delays, the Worland Lady Warriors softball team gets their season underway this Tuesday when they host the Cody Fillies at 2 p.m. at Newell Sargent Park in Worland.

Like the other spring sports, the Lady Warriors have had to practice indoors to start the season. However, this week the team finally got outdoors and practiced.

Worland also had their opening season tournament in Cheyenne canceled due to weather, along with the Cody game being pushed back to Tuesday.

It's been an odd start to the season, but first-year head coach Tim Barrus is excited for his team to take the field this season.

"We've been cooped up and kind of bumping shoulders with the soccer team and track," said Barrus. "We'll see what the weather does for the rest of the week ahead, but we are excited to get on the field because it's really hard to do a full practice when you're just doing drills and stuff inside."

Barrus added, "We're really excited. We've reached a point where practicing indoors and the skills are kind of at a standstill. We don't know what we need to improve on completely until we actually get into some competition. We're all excited to play and see how we're going to play together and how we're going to mesh as a team."

The Lady Warriors have 26 players out this season; 13 are from the Riverton, Lander area, with the rest from Worland.

The Riverton-Lander carpool to Worland at least three times a week for practice and have shown they're locked in for this season.

"We have girls coming from Fremont County that are going to play with us this year. We're the closest team, and we've welcomed the numbers to help our program develop. So we have 12 to 13 girls from the Riverton-Lander area, and the rest of our team is from Worland," said Barrus.

"[The Riverton-Lander players] have been carpooling, and our [activity directors] got together and said if we can get them to commit to practicing at least three days a week, that would be sufficient. And so far, they're committed to coming as much as possible," said Barrus.

With their numbers this season, the internal competition among the team for playing time should only help the program grow and compete this season.

"We have a lot of talented girls from both places. It's going to be pretty competitive for each of their spots. You have to compete, which gives them a reason to work harder and try to out-compete the other girl for a spot.

"I'm really optimistic about what we have. We have some good hitters that are going to be coming with us. We have a couple of good pitchers, both from Riverton, Lander and Worland. I'm really optimistic about how the season is going to match up for us," said Barrus.

As the assistant coach for Lady Warrior softball the past two seasons, Barrus steps in as the head coach with a familiarity with the program. He's also thrilled with the assistants he has helping him this season, Jacquie Ledley and Dave Coronado. Both assistants bring a wealth of experience that Barrus will lean on as head coach.

"Coach Ledley is going to be my pitching and catching coach. She has some experience as a head coach and softball as well. We also have coach Dave Coronado, who has done a lot of the traveling league in the summer. Between both of them, we have a lot of experience, and I'm going to really lean on them a lot," said Barrus. "And with my couple of years as an assistant and background in baseball, I'm hoping that we can put together a decent program."

Along with improving his players, Barrus wants the players in his program to learn and grow not just within the game of softball but also in life.

"I want those girls to come out, not just to be good athletes, I want them to be active in a program to learn some teamwork, build some good people skills, make friends and learn to work together as a group," said Barrus. "That's probably more of my goal than anything, just to kind of build the character of those girls."

As the Lady Warriors get ready to begin their season, they will have a group of players to help be leaders out on the field and in the dugout.

Lilly Hamilton, Ivey Roberts and Molly Glanz will be among those counted on to help lead this season.

"We have girls from both counties that we've picked to be our team captains. We have Lilly Hamilton from the Riverton area, who has quite a bit of experience playing softball. She's a senior this year and going to play in college. She will take a few college trips in our season to try out for some of the teams.

Ivey Roberts

"Locally, we have a few girls who are quite experienced. We have Ivey Roberts, who's been playing ever since she's been old enough to walk. We got Molly Glanz, who's been playing forever as well. She has quite a bit of experience as well," said Barrus. "And there are a lot who are just growing and developing. I think eventually we'll lean on everybody."

 
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