Just shortly after the announcement came down from the Mississippi High School Activities Association that the 2020 spring sports year was over, East Webster High School wanted to honor its lone softball senior.
Coy Jennings has spent six years being a large part of what the Lady Wolverines have done. The Lady Wolverines were bound for a big year in her final season and she was ready to go out on top. Instead, it all ended with COVID-19.
So head coach Lee Berryhill and his program honored Jennings the only way that it could due to social distancing and that was by leaving her a message in the infield dirt.
A tweet with the picture attached had thoughts from Berryhill that read, “We hate that Coy’s senior year ended how it did, but we know that there’s a purpose for it all. Coy represented EWHS on and off the field. We are very proud of her and wish her only the best. Proud to have been her coach throughout her high school career.”
Jennings played for the Lady Wolverines from seventh grade all the way through her career but became a major part of things by her eighth grade year both in slow pitch and fast. She was able to be a part of the final slow pitch team in East Webster history as the team’s only senior and luckily was at least be recognized with a formal senior day during the fall.
But Berryhill felt that she was even turning the corner from fall to spring this year as she was as confident as she had been in her career heading into her senior season of fast pitch. She had helped the Lady Wolverines out to a 3-0 start this season with five hits.
“She gained experience at a young age and with that experience she kept building up on it,” Berryhill said. “This year she was the only senior we had and she gained a lot of maturity from junior to senior year, especially mentally. She was heading into a good senior year.”
After the announcement that spring sports wouldn’t return this year, Berryhill texted Jennings to tell her that her career had been completed. Though disappointed that she couldn’t finish things out with her team and compete for a state title, Jennings understood.
She also had the potential to play college softball next season, an opportunity that she’s turning down in order to focus on school.
“I’ve talked to her and thanked her for all that she’s done. She has a couple of opportunities to further her career and she decided that with her future in the educational field she wanted to move on,” Berryhill said. “She has grown and matured a lot and she took it in stride. She knows that this is something that’s happened for a reason and accepts it.”
While EWHS only had one senior that had to go through the disappointment of seeing their final year ended too soon, there are thousands of kids around the state of Mississippi and millions nationwide that will.
Berryhill feels for those seniors that are unlike just about everyone before them and after that didn’t get to have a senior night or have a chance to compete for a district or state championship. It’s those players that will suffer the most during this difficult time.
“They work all the way through school and their sports career and it means a lot to them to carry on the traditions but they won’t get to experience those,” Berryhill said. “You feel for those seniors because they work so hard. It all ended so abruptly. They missed out on a big part of their senior years.”
