Micah Brewington tracks the ball, ready send it deep into right field.
Anthony McConnaughey|Sampson Independent
The Lady Horses have a new coach who has aided in turning around the softball program at Clinton. Micah Brewington has stepped up to the plate with hopes to bring the Lady Horses higher.
“I got a call and they said the other coach had resigned and the girl that was going to take over went to law school. So I wanted to try and help the school out, bring something to the community.”
Brewington was spotted hitting balls out to his players on a windy afternoon with the players fielding them and having a few laughs. He didn’t mind joining them in the jubilee but managed to keep the practice grounded with well timed pointers along with a joke or two. He got the call and decided to take on the job, hoping to bring the Horses up and give back to the community.
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” he’d say mid swing knocking grounders to the infield and fly balls to the out.
His presistence on keeping his young team focused on the game has helped the Lady Horses as they came out in a stampede to begin the season, starting out at 4-2. They currently only have one pitcher in Alivia Capps, a freshman, who has shown a talent for the game. He knows that this could be a problem if she was ever hurt and as already begun developing other players to take on the role should it be needed.
Brewington has had experience coaching before, citing his time as a travel coach and helping his daughter as well in the sport. He wanted the opportunity to coach his daughter in her final season as a Lady Horse but unfortunately she tore her ACL and will be unable to play this season. When taking over a team, there are plenty of challenges to face as the team will have to warm up to their new leader and adopt a new ethos at times. With his experience, he has seen this before and spoke about the challenge of trying to instill new values and mindsets.
“Some of their girls are set in their ways they’ve been coached a certain way. Kids aren’t like what we were back in the day. Not like walking on eggshells, but you have got to coach more delicately. Other than that, the challenge was getting them to know me and where I am coming from.”
Despite their successful start, they have run into a rut as they are coming back from spring break on a five game skid. They took a pretty heavy loss to Wallace-Rose Hill in a 17-4 rout. Brewington discussed how this affected their spirits and how they adjusted.
“I knew coming in I wanted to save Capps for our conference games, but her knee was swollen up after Union. So I had to do some changes, put some girls that hadn’t played as pitchers. We could’ve played with Wallace but we just walked a lot,” he said. “After the game, I think it took a toll on them. A lot of the girls came up to me after the game and asked me how to improve or how to help pitching. Now we’re just trying to build a little bigger.”
Despite their struggle against Wallace, he praised his team’s hitting, acknowledging that they still need to work on it. He also noted their work ethic and how they were working to have a better season.
The Lady Horses would fall in their first conference game against West Bladen, 7-5 to cap off the week before their break. Clinton will be back ready and rested as they continue their conference play where they will face the Red Springs Lady Devils (3-5) on Apr…
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