Fast in the field

Watch Chelsea Bowman run down a fly ball and marvel at how quickly the West Valley senior center fielder covers ground. What may look like an extra-base hit into the gap gets gobbled up, run down by a mega-watt grin with legs and a bouncing ponytail.

“I love it – I love playing this game,” she said. “Being out there on the field, that’s where I’m the happiest.”

Impressive as she is to watch on the field, you still don’t know the half of it.

Bowman took up fastpitch softball a year ago. Before that she’d been a speedster for the West Valley track team.

“I’m used to running relays,” she says. “I’m used to starting to run facing backward, looking for a baton.”

The All-Great Northern League outfielder doesn’t remember how long it had been since she’d picked up a glove or thrown a softball before the start of turnout last year. However long, it came back in a flash. And then some. By the end of the season she was an honorable mention All-State outfielder as well as part of the team’s pitching staff.

“It had been a long time,” she said. “I can’t even begin to remember how long it had been. But it all came back so fast.”

Hitting, throwing, it was as if she’d been playing softball all along.

“I didn’t have to take any extra batting practice or anything,” she said. “Even pitching came pretty naturally to me. This year, though, I am taking some extra batting practice. I’ve been working on hitting from the left side.”

Bowman is part of an especially speedy outfield for the Eagles.

“Brittany Anderson is almost as fast as I am, so we cover a lot of ground,” Bowman said. “Camille Mackey, too. And we have a freshman, Leah Peterson, who is really going to be something special by the time she gets to be a junior.”

Bowman makes it her mission to keep things light in the outfield.

“Brittany and me, we sing to one another in the outfield,” she said. “We have special songs that we sing to one another. Or we have quotes from this one comedian we know that we say to one another.”

It’s not just the songs and jokes, she adds. There’s choreography, too.

“Oh yeah – we have special things we do every time we make an out,” Bowman said. “It’s something different every time.”

The choreography, in part, is to help keep warm under challenging conditions.

“It has been so cold this season,” she said. “I took batting practice the other day and I had to quit after four hits. My hands hurt so bad that I just couldn’t hit any more.

“We went down to play at Pullman and their field was picture perfect,” she said. “We come back home and our field has a lake in the middle of it, and we have piles of dirt stacked up so we can fix it. Our infielders have to practice around it. Or we have to dig holes to get the water to drain off of it.”

Warmer temperatures and drier conditions are just what the team needs, she said.

The Eagles split their opening two league series with Pullman and Clarkston, heading into a home-and-home series with Riverside with a 2-2 league record.

The team’s best play still is ahead of them, Bowman insists. Besides, she adds, there’s an aura of success around girls sports at West Valley.

“Teams look at us differently, especially this year,” Bowman said. “This has been a terrific year, and I think that gives us a lot of confidence going into this season. Our soccer team got all the way to the state finals. Our volleyball team went to state, and the basketball team went to state.

“A lot of our players were part of those teams, and I think that success carries over.”