Although it was never officially announced, Delta’s women’s softball team canceled their season two days before it started.
“It was the hardest decision we had to make,” Shelly Raube, Athletic director at Delta, said.
The softball team consisted of nine players, the assistant coach and head coach Steve Klinge.
Raube explained with only having the exact number of players to cover each position, there was a risk that if a player got injured the team would have to forfeit the rest of the season and their next season would be on probation.
“There were too many what-ifs,” Raube said.
The 2013-2014 season boiled down to about three weeks and Coach Klinge, Raube and the team made the decision together to cancel it for the safety of the players.
Melissa Benchley, 19, plays third base and short-stop for the softball team. Benchley said she knew they were going to have to cancel the season after three sophomore players quit, leaving them with only one pitcher, one catcher and nine players in all.
“If the sophomores stuck it out we would have been fine,” Benchley said.
Benchley is getting her degree in education and had a scholarship to play softball at Delta.
“I planned on two years but it’s been so messy,” Benchley said.
She plans on going to Central next year so she can be closer to home.
“If there was a way to have had a season we would’ve,” Raube said.
The other teams in the league will have a bye-game on their scheduled games against Delta.
“For the past two years we’ve been struggling,” Raube said, “We should be dominating.” A lot of girls end up leaving the team to focus on school, work or their hearts just not in it, Raube said Delta also loses great talent to other teams in the area.12