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League News The Town Crier did a story on our league back in late July. By DAN IGO Sports Correspondent LOWELL -- The Lowell Sunday Night Coed Softball League has only been around for two years, but you wouldn¹t know that by looking at St. Louis Field on a Sunday night. Unlike many other adult softball leagues, the LSNCSL is able to fill both sides of the field with fans. Often considered one of the better run softball leagues in the area, the LSNCSL is a model on how softball can be both fun and competitive at the same time. The idea of a league was hatched two years ago by Tewksbury resident Bobby Cooper and Lowell resident John ³Moose² Kuenzler. After they played in a league up in Nashua, New Hampshire, they decided to start their own in Lowell. They researched different types of leagues and determined that the demand for coed slow pitch was much higher than some of the modified leagues in the area. ³What we tried to do is make it the most competitive softball league around,² said Kuenzler. ³The players and the team reps make all the rules.² Despite giving the teams a lot more responsibility than most leagues do, Kuenzler and Cooper still have important roles to fill. Cooper is the league treasurer, as well as the schedule coordinator and the webmaster of the leagues official website. Kuenzler is the President. He is responsible for calling meetings and the scheduling of umpires. Cooper estimates that he puts in five or six hours a week alone in between running the website and his time at the field. He says that he had three goals in mind when making the league. ³I wanted the league to be fun, fair, and balanced,² he said. ³Fun means that everyone always has a good time. Fair means that no one dictates what goes on. Balanced means you don¹t have a team 0-20 and you don¹t have a team 20-0. Anybody can beat anybody. It¹s not like other leagues where one team rules.² Some leagues play on weekdays, but Kuenzler and Cooper feel that the idea of playing just once a week brings much more involvement and participation from not only the players, but the fans as well. ³We got it down to ten teams. Instead of adding more teams, we work on making those teams more competitive and more balanced. We only play on Sundays and we only play on this field,² said Kuenzler. An example of the balance within the league came this past Sunday as four of the seven games that were played were decided by two runs or less. The league is also very different from other typical leagues. On Saturday night, the league held its second annual home run derby for both males and females, as well as an all-star game at the St. Louis Field on Lakeview Ave in Lowell. Nicole Darcy of PI Paint won the female home run challenge as she belted 11 home runs. Harry McDonald won the male competition with seven round trippers, and then he went on to hit two more in the all-star game. Having a league being coed is a challenge. Women do not play by the same rules as men do. A man can¹t be walked to get to a woman. The softball that a woman hits is also smaller and harder than a regulation softball. Despite the advantages, Kate Morris, a former standout catcher on the Tewksbury High softball team, believes that she isn¹t treated any differently from anyone else. ³Everyone is treated the same,² she said. ³By this point, everyone knows that every girl in this league can hit, can run, and can catch. There isn¹t one girl in this league who can¹t do their job.² Players from around the region play in this league. They come from as far north as New Hampshire and Maine, and as far south as Newton. However, Cooper estimates that 50% of the league is from Lowell, Tewksbury and Wilmington. Brian Wilkinson is a player from Tewksbury who was intrigued by the league after hearing the buzz it was getting around the area. ³The fact that it is on Sundays is great,² he said. ³It¹s a lot of fun. The interest in this league is crazy. You see all the people that really care about the league and put a lot of effort and time into it. In my opinion the league is well run from the top to the bottom. It starts with Bobby and John and goes all the way through.² One of the keys to the league is the official website. Despite only being online for two years, the site has already had over 50,000 hits. There are no plans to expand the league in the near future. Cooper believes that league will expand if the field next to St. Louis Field is ever renovated. Players and sponsors are always needed. For more information, visit: http://www.eteamz.active.com/lowell/ |
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Lowell Sunday Night Co-ed Softball League Website View Our Guestbook | Sign Our Guestbook 8394 visitors have signed our guestbook. |
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