Wausa Summer baseball, softball leagues prepare for summer
WAUSA — The Wausa Summer League has been busy this past few weeks preparing for the season. Between cleaning up the fields and park to raising money at the Smoking Chips for the program, there has been so much happening.
This past week, the softball and baseball players helped with a fundraiser Smoking Chips has started. It is Give Back Wednesday, where local organizations and groups can come in Wednesday night and help take orders, serve food and cleanup tables. A portion of each special and regular meal served will go back to that organization along with the tips.
The response from the community was overwhelming, with over 80 specials sold. The organization raised $459.28 to go toward fees associated with State Softball and the tournament fees for baseball.
Cleanup night for the fields and park was held last Tuesday night. The Wausa Summer League and 4H club joined forces to tackle the task. The baseball field was not used last summer so there was a lot of debris and leaves that needed to be cleaned up. Both concession stands were cleaned up and prepped for the first game. On the softball field, there was more heavy lifting as a batting cage was constructed. Two years ago, before COVID shutdown the season for both baseball and softball, a grant for $1,500 from Michael’s Food, Bloomfield, was received to construct one for the softball field. It was great to see it being constructed after waiting for what seemed like an eternity to the organization. The improvements on both fields has been a long time coming and it is so exciting to see the transformation of both.
Another fundraiser the baseball side has decided to do is a softener salt sale. The order forms will be going out to the Wausa baseball players this week. They are offering 40# bags of Diamond Crystals salt in both the pellet and crystal funds for $9 delivered to your house or garage. Pallets of salt will be available for purchase, too. The final date to order will be May 10, and at that time your order will need to be paid for, so the league can order the salt from Main Street Grocery. If you are interested, please get in touch with one of the baseball players. They would be happy to assist you. You can also contact Tiffanie Wakeley at 402-586-2869 and Carrie Gillilan at 402-360-0161.
Another fundraiser being planned is an apparel sale. Stay tuned for more details on that as details are being finalized.
The coaches for all age groups have been practicing and having skill camps for the athletes. The auditorium and fields have been busy with all these activities.
Although some teams have been able to get on the fields due to nice weather, some teams have not had as good of luck. Mother Nature has been very indecisive this spring. Capp Bengston has been working with the boys of the 9/10 age group, since that age group will start to pitch this year. The years of experience Bengston brings has been very valuable to the program.
Shelbey West has been working with the softball pitchers for over a month now to help improve their pitching and catching skills.
The Wausa Summer League encourages you to come out and watch the local talent of our baseball and softball teams this summer.
The softball games are scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday nights. The baseball teams of the age groups of 5/6, 7/8 and 9/10 are planned for Monday and Thursday nights. The age groups of 11/12 and 13/14 will also be on Monday and Thursday nights. Those age groups play with the Quad County League.
Schedules are still being finalized but if you like to know when games are they will be posted in the paper and the Wausa Summer League page. The excitement of ball season is brewing, and the Wausa Summer League hopes you are just as excited.
Stay in the know!
To get news alerts on your cell phone, get the Cedar County News app in the ITunes store or in the Google Play Store.
