Bridgewater, Va. – The Bridgewater College baseball team held their first organized practice of the year on Monday, Sept. 28. The team returned to the field for the first time since the 2020 season — after it ended early because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

After a 15-23 2019 season, the baseball team looked promising with a 11-4 record halfway through the season until the COVID-19 outbreak in early March. The team plans to pick up where they left off during the 2020 season in the upcoming 2021 season. 

In the midst of the pandemic, no one can confidently say that sports will or will not continue in the spring. With the hopes that everything will go back to normal in the near future, Elijah Dunlap is keeping a positive mindset for the upcoming baseball season at BC. 

Dunlap is a biology major in his first year at BC and hopes to see some time on the field as a pitcher, after spending majority of his time at Riverheads High School on the pitcher’s mound.

“We’re building off an amazing start to the season last year, I don’t have any concerns about the upcoming season if we play, just a lot of high hopes,” said Dunlap. 

The only requirement prior to the first day of practice that the team had to do was conditioning and strength training according to Dunlap. Dunlap also mentioned that some of the players were setting up their own practices outside of campus to have some bonding time, along with getting back into the swing of things. 

“I know basically everyone on the team, but I haven’t really got to hangout with everyone at the same time,” said Dunlap. 

Due to COVID-19, having the whole baseball team on the field at the same time would not be ideal for the players themselves or for the college, which is why the baseball team has decided to split up their organized practices. 

“The first half of the team will practice at 3:45 and then the second half practice at 5:15,” said Dunlap. “Nothing feels different during practice despite the pandemic, it’s still baseball.”

The idea of splitting the team in half might worry some about unity among the whole team itself, but Dunlap is pretty confident that the bonding of the whole team will not be an issue. 

“There is great leadership on the team, they are really good at getting everyone involved. The upperclassmen on the team are always checking in on me along with everyone else,” said Dunlap.