High School Softball season is about five months away from starting, but that does not stop softball athletes from preparing for season. At West Anchorage High School the softball players are already preparing themselves for when season actually comes, to them softball season is right around the corner.

West has started an open gym practice every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 6:30 to 8:30 in the little gym. It is welcomed to anyone who is looking forward into joining the West softball team this upcoming year.

Sean Syrup is the Varsity Softball Head Coach for West Anchorage High School. He has been coaching nine years in total, but only four years for West. He believes he made the right decision in starting pre-season now rather than later in the year.

Last year West came in second place in state, and Coach Syrup believes they can do much better this year. He wants to see who are the new players and who can fill in the spots for the seniors of last year. “We have a lot of new players this year, and lost a lot of strong seniors so I wanted to get started early, see what kind of talent was out there and lock in some fundamentals early so we can just get down to business later on when season starts,” said Coach Syrup.

With pre-season in the process, Coach Syrup is not worried about any team this year, he mentioned, “ We don’t worry about no school, we worry about ourselves and our skills. There are good teams out there but with pre-season starting early we should have no problem when the time comes.”

Coach Syrup is not the only one who thinks pre-season is a good idea. Rebecca Syrup is the daughter of Coach Syrup and a sophomore at West Anchorage High School. This will be her second year playing for the West Varsity Softball team. Syrup thinks that there are no days off when it comes to softball. Whether its season or not she is somehow always doing something that can help her improve for season.

“I just got done with playing Flag football which helped me a lot with conditioning and working on my arm for pitching since I was quarterback,” Syrup explained. Although Syrup thinks pre-season is good for improving and working on skills before season she also believes that this can help create a bond.

“Creating a bond is something important all teams need, and with pre-season it helps us get to know each other better and longer and will improve our playing as a team,” said Syrup.

Allysa Brown is a senior and a new student at West . She moved this year to West specifically for the softball program. West has one of the top softball programs going on and she wanted to be apart of it. She feels that pre-season this early into the year was a great idea, “I feel like it was good to start it this early so that way I can click with my new team and learn how West plays softball” Brown said.

Even though she is the new girl on the team she is very confident on how good her and the team will do. Her ultimate goal for pre-season is to learn and know all the plays for West, she wants to be almost perfect by the time season comes, and open gym is what is going to get her there.