By Carolyn Bick

carolyn@warehamweek.com

It’s batter up at the Wareham Girls Softball league winter hitting clinic.

The 13-week program, which began in January and takes place at Cage in Marion, has already attracted several new players, a few of whom showed up at the clinic Sunday evening.

League President Charlie Young said it was the first year such a clinic has been held for the league’s divisions. There is a program for girls in kindergarten through second grade; a division of girls in grades three through five; and an older girls’ division with players in grades six through eight.

Though the league “has been going on for … way before I was here,” Young said it was the first time such a clinic had been held for the girls’ softball league.

“We wanted to do something better, and kind of improve the program by having clinics for these kids, so they can come out here and better themselves, because that is how you build a better league,” Young said.

Young said he and many other coaches and parents involved in the league believe the town’s girls’ sports don’t get the same play, so to speak, as boys’ sports. They want to change that, and make girls’ sports as recognized and respected as boys’ sports.

“I have girls – from my perspective, they … are always on the lower end of things,” Young said. “I, along with my board, am trying to change that whole perspective. I am trying to give these girls the opportunity of a lifetime, like the boys have. These girls deserve it.”

Young and the current league administration took over in September 2015. Since the new administration came in, they have created a modified, smaller space for the youngest girls in the league to play, between the two regular-sized softball fields on Charlotte Furnace Road.

“They can actually play on the field and it won’t be strenuous to them,” Young said. “They won’t get overwhelmed by it.”

Young said he is also letting the coaches design their teams’ logos and uniforms. In the summer, he said the teams will also be playing “very competitive softball” in the South Shore League, instead of the Cape Cod League.

“There are actually … 28 teams, so the girls will have an opportunity not to play the same team twice,” Young said.

He said they will also have a Fall Ball program towards the end of the year, to allow the girls to continue playing, once the season is over.

“Softball is going to be a year-round sport for the kids that want to make it a year-round sport,” Young said. “We are just getting our feet wet now.”

Part of the plan is to make the girls feel part of a strong program in the town, which may entice them to stay in Wareham schools, rather than leave for other districts. Young said a few of the high school’s young women athletes volunteer to help train the younger girls, and that even the high school coach occasionally drops by to train them. He believes strong female role models from the higher grades will help to keep the girls in the school system.

“We are trying to emphasize getting the kids to stay in this town,” Young said. “Before, they didn’t really have anybody to look up to.”