WEST CARLETON – As hockey season winds down in West Carleton, it’s time to put down the sticks and pick up the bats.

West Carleton Softball Association (WCSA) 2020 registration is now open for most of the participating communities. Registration is open for Fitzroy Harbour, Dunrobin and Constance Bay. Kinburn and Carp registration will be open soon (check the website for updates).

The WCSA organizes fastpitch softball for boys and girls ages five to 19. Games are played at participating community centres in West Carleton, with older age groups also participating against teams in other associations including McNab and Stittsville. The house league season runs from early May to late June.

This year is the welcome return of Dunrobin to the WCSA family of participating communities. Dunrobin was unable to participate during the 2019 season due to extensive damage to the ballpark and the loss of all the softball equipment and the shed that held it following the devastating tornado in the fall of 2018.

The devastation left approximately 70 kids looking for new teams in 2019. But that was then, and this year is a whole new ballgame.

Last June, the Senstar Security Solutions team volunteered a day to clean-up the community centre and build a brand new shed for the softball association.

The City of Ottawa also pitched in to repair the ball diamonds and remediate the soil from all the tornado debris. The Arnprior Rotary Club and five of its partner organizations in Ottawa, Stittsville and even Quebec stepped up and raised almost $4,000 to purchase all new equipment.

Suffice it to say, Dunrobin volunteer softball convener Lori Kemp-McGrath is stoked softball is back in Dunrobin.

“I’m ecstatic to have ball this year,” Kemp-McGrath told West Carleton Online today (March 4). “It was so depressing to see the ball diamonds not useable and have no equipment. It was quite an undertaking. The volunteers and charity organizations and city really stepped up to help with that and make it possible for us to be up and running this year.”