Helena Welcomes 55 Young Players to Learn Skills at Helena Softball Camp – Shelby County Reporter

By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

HELEN – The cloudy sky couldn’t dampen the spirits of the dozens of young softball players as they took lessons from the Helena Huskies at Helena Softball Camp on July 22 and 23 on the Helena High School softball field.

“I was really happy with the amount of participation we had,” Helena varsity softball coach Mark Sanders said. “We had about 55 kids from first through sixth grade. It was just a great turnout, we had a little bit of rain that we dodged, but it made it a little cooler for us.“

During the two-day event, participants were busy rotating through various stations, learning a variety of softball skills that they could use in their own game, taught by one of the top teams in Class 6A.

On the first day, the children learned the basics of defending and throwing at the defensive post, hit the ball at the offensive post, worked on their hitting skills and were also allowed to catch balls.

They returned on Tuesday and had to complete four more stations: a simulated game, an offensive station, baserunning, and an introduction to pitching, the last of which was taught by Cameron Bailey, the current Mississippi College pitcher and a Helena alum.

Bailey was just one of many Huskies players who answered Sanders’ call to help with the camp. She was joined by former Huskies Lexi Bullock, now an outfielder at Auburn-Montgomery, and Alex Erwin, a center fielder at Marion Military Institute, and about 80 percent of Helena’s current varsity and middle school softball players.

The players, who played under Sanders during his decades at Helena Middle School or on the college team during his first season as head coach in 2024, showed up in such numbers that they nearly equaled the campers, allowing for plenty of one-on-one instruction.

Sanders knows how much the participants enjoy meeting and learning from the players, and he is confident that they have also been able to teach the children well, together with the coaches and players with college experience.

“I think one of the things they look forward to the most or are looking forward to the most is being able to interact with the high school and middle school players, so having that one-on-one with kids who have been doing this a long time, have had a lot of instruction and have been very successful,” Sanders said. “Then we had three former players who played here who are all now college players, and they were here helping out, and then we had all of our coaches who had some experience in college athletics. They were here as well. So the quality of instruction was very good.“

He believes their enthusiasm to sign up and help out is a sign of how much they want to grow the sport in the Helena area and how much they want to contribute to the lives of the young children who may one day take their place with the Huskies.

“I just think it shows the dedication that the players have to the game and to our community,” Sanders said. “These kids were excited to be here. They came early, they stayed late, and they did a really good job of engaging with the campers. And I just think it speaks volumes about their love for the game and their love for the community.“

The players also have a deep love for the camp, as for some of them it is the genesis of their love for softball. Sanders said several players have told him that softball camp was the moment their desire to play for the Huskies began.

Now these players can share their experience with the next generation, hoping they will experience a similar love for the game.

“We’ve had kids who graduated from here and graduated from high school and went to a camp that we had years ago in high school, and they told me later that going to that camp really got them interested in the sport. That’s when they knew, ‘Hey, I want to keep doing this through high school,'” Sanders said.

According to Sanders, that is the ultimate goal of the camp: to grow the sport of softball by introducing more people to it and showing them that they too can play at a high level in the future.

“I think it really helps to pique their interest and show them on a bigger stage, a bigger level and have them interact with these high school girls. That helps set that goal and set the bar of, ‘Hey, this is what I really want to do,'” Sanders said.