Coronavirus took away their senior season. Calvary Christian’s baseball coaches gave them their sendoff
The infield at Calvary Christian’s baseball field sat freshly painted, the team’s four seniors’ numbers marked into the ground.
May 15 was senior night for the Knights, typically a warmhearted affair which allows senior athletes to close the book on their storied high school careers. Any other year, players and parents would take the field before and after the game for photos, to capture their final moments as players at the field on which they grew up playing.
Senior night still took place this season, but the circumstances were much different. And no organized baseball was played, due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, which shut down sports nationwide back in March.
But that wasn’t stopping the Knights coaching staff from holding one final outing for the team’s seniors: Thomas Owen Toole, Tyler Watkins, Brantley Lewis and Peyton Holloway.
“On senior night, we always paint their numbers around home plate,” Knights coach Steve Smith said over the phone on Thursday. “The parents and the seniors get a chance to take some pictures. ... We didn’t want them to miss out on that moment.”
Smith and the Knights staff held the secretive event while following social distancing precautions.
The Knights lost a chance at a third consecutive GICAA state title due to the virus. Last year, they swept all three of their series by a combined score of 65-11. The narrowest margin of victory was five runs. They finished 32-7 — a record number of wins for the program.
The seniors and their families were invited out to the field. Eventually, word spread to the juniors on the team, who also attended to support their peers.
The field was set to look like it would for a typical home game, with chalk around home plate, bases laid out and the infield freshly watered. It looked like it was “ready for a game,” Smith said.
So ready, in fact, that Toole jokingly quipped that he wished the group could take turns hitting balls on the field.
“That’s actually a good idea,” Toole recalled of the conversation he and his friends had in the moment.
So, the group did just that. Each senior took turns taking batting practice, while the juniors caught balls launched into the outfield as parents watched on.
“(This season) is not what they were hoping for,” Smith said to the athletes’ parents, according to his account. “But I think it was a good moment for them, and something they’ll remember for a long time.”
It may not replace the adrenaline rush that hits a batter when he steps up to the plate, or the pressure a pitcher faces trying to protect a narrow lead in the later innings.
But last week’s gathering was meant to provide the four athletes a positive memory from a season ripped away.
“I’ve been playing Calvary baseball for seven years, since sixth grade,” Toole said. “Not having a whole senior season, and not having that closure, it was kind of sad. Since coach Smith did that for us, I could say goodbye to it, in a way.”
