By Mylee Jones
The last four years have been challenging for Delta girls’ softball. After head coach Doug Wilder retired in 2019, Covid prevented the Eagles from having a season in 2020.
Former player Logan (Bland) Lewis then took over as head coach for 2021 and 2022, leading the team to 10 wins each season.
When she left prior to the 2023 season, new coach Todd Taylor came in and the Eagles won only one game. He left at the end of the season.
Now new coach Caitlyn Grim and a team of young players are trying to get the program back on track.
Grim is also a science teacher at Delta Middle School. She coached travel ball for the past three years and gives hitting lessons but she said, “This will be my first ‘big girl’ coaching job.”
She applied for this job last year but still was in college. She decided to re-apply this year because she misses playing. She wanted to have an impact on the girls because she knows the program has been down lately.
“I’m excited to see what they can do,” Coach Grim said. “I have full faith in them that they can do anything they want to do and nobody is going to stop us.”
She attended Yorktown High School and played varsity softball all four years as an outfielder.
In college she played at Taylor University. They advanced to nationals during her junior and senior seasons.
“When playing in college it taught me a lot about leadership and the different mentalities that you have to have when playing that could also be applicable for life,” Coach Grim said.
Coach Grim hopes it will be a good season because the girls have a strong attitude and have made progress through the open gyms.
Multiple players that played last year decided not to play this spring.
Sophomore Haley Loser thinks the people leaving just makes the remaining girls feel down because they think that they don’t want to play with them.
¨I think it will be an adequate season because our coach really gets us working hard and we’ve practiced a lot already,” Haley said.
She is expecting them to win up to 10 games and when they lose they will lose as a team and not as individuals.
Haley likes the new coach because she said she knows what she is doing and gives good pep talks. She helps them fix something whenever they do it wrong.
“Instead of calling us a team she calls us family,” Haley said .
Junior Fancy Robbins has been playing on the team since freshman year. She plays shortstop and believes it will be a fun season.
When Fancy was a freshman their record was 10-15 with Logan Lewis as her coach. Her sophomore year their record was 1-23 with Todd Taylor as their coach.
Fancy said the freshmen on the team will bring the team together because not only are they good at softball but they are fun people to be around.
She believes that when she got a new coach both of her playing years they just play to play and don’t have enough team bonding.
Coach Grim thinks her coaching will be a good way to change the culture and the mindsets of the players.
“I want to have an impact on the girls because the program has been down in the dumps,” Grim said.
She decided to coach at Delta for multiple reasons. The opportunity to change the program really played a part, and she teaches at Delta Middle School so that also played a part. She went to Yorktown and seeing the rivalry diminish over the years, she just wants to get that back.
Grim was planning on coaching the middle school girls’ softball team but the athletic director, Mr. Chase Criswell, told her that coaching the high school team would be a better fit for her and suggested that she apply for it.
The plan is for Grim to stay in the position as long as possible. She said that she might take a break if she gets married or has children in the future, but for now she sees coaching as being a consistent and long-term opportunity.
“The girls keep asking me if I’m going to dip after one year like every other coach has,” Coach Grim said. “I say, ‘No, I’m here to stay.’”
