ALAMOSA, Colo.— Saturday’s Adams State College softball alumni game will be played indoors in the Plachy Hall Fieldhouse, Grizzly head coach Dervin Taylor and assistant coach and game organizer Kira Zeiter announced Friday. The game, which was originally scheduled to be played outdoors at the ASC Softball Field, will still be played at 1 p.m. and will pit the 2010 edition of the Grizzlies against former greats of the program.
Admission is free.
The alumni squad, which will include as many as 15 former ASC players including Zeiter and fellow assistant coaches Ivy Hansen and Shannon Galanek, will be coached by 2005-07 coach Cari Franzen (Boe), who stepped down in 2007 to move to Nebraska with then fiancée and now husband Dave Franzen.
Taylor, who replaced Franzen will guide the 2010 Grizzlies in Saturday’s contest that will be played with modified indoor rules and light-flight balls.
The game, believed to be a first such contest in ASC softball history, was the brainchild of Zeiter, an award-winning Grizzly player who played for Boe during the 2006 and 2007 seasons before becoming a member of Taylor’s staff following her graduation.
Although many members of the alumni team may be out of the daily practice routine they still have a long list of talent featuring players from three different decades including several players from Franzen’s 2005, 2006 and 2007 teams that provided the foundation for Taylor’s 2008 and 2009 squads that each won Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference West Division titles as the Grizzlies have reached a new level of softball success highlighted by the back-to-back division titles, the 2008 run to the RMAC Championship game and last year’s stints in the regional rankings, a first in ASC’s NCAA Division II history.
The game will also give the current Grizzlies a chance at some live completion as they are making final preparations for the upcoming season that begins Feb. 20 at the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference/RMAC crossover in Kearney, Neb.