Over the summer, Haven installed batting cages for the softball team in the back-fields of the high school.

The project was proposed at the beginning of 2022 and completed before the 2024 school year started.

According to Title IX, high schools are required to provide equal athletic opportunity based on sex. With batting cages for the baseball team in active use each season, similar facilities for the softball team were overdue.

“It doesn’t have to be perfectly the same, but there should be comparable options,” former Athletic Director Dr. Patrick Clancy said. “The lack of scoreboard and the lack of batting cages were two clear examples of that.” 

The batting cages will allow the softball team to multitask during practices.

“We bought a new pitching machine for them,” current Athletic Director Ms. Lynelle Mosley said. “ When they’re practicing, they can send a couple of kids to the batting cages to work on stuff while [coaches] work on stuff with the other kids in the field.”

Haven installed two lanes in hopes of restarting a junior varsity softball team in the future. 

“We have not had a JV program in softball for about four years because of lack of participation,” Clancy said. “We’ve been hoping to get to that point where we have upwards of four teams: two middle school and potentially two high school teams. I felt like having two different lanes made sense so multiple teams could use that space.”

The materials for the batting cages and the softball scoreboard sat idle for two years as the district operations department addressed a backlog of maintenance projects throughout the district. 

According to Clancy, the operations department has been working hard to keep up and improve school facilities with limited manpower.

“There’s only one groundskeeper for all of our athletic fields,” Clancy said. “One guy for something like 17 acres of field. It’s a lot for one person, and then that person tends to be assigned to put together all the soccer goals and things like that as well.”

According to Clancy’s calculations, the 17 acres does not include Haven’s playing fields at NPE, Henderson Field, or CADES/Rutgers Avenue.

The cages will be open to the public for the foreseeable future.

“We always see people from the public come and use the baseball batting cage. If you’ve got a kid in fifth or sixth grade, you try to get them some batting practice,” Clancy said.

Senior and softball player Ella Liberi believes the batting cages will help the team improve team performance and bonding.

“We can all work together and give each other feedback,” Liberi said. “That is really going to be a great space for us to communicate with each other and get hype before the game.”

Liberi wants to see her teammates improve their confidence in the batter’s box and get solid contact on the ball.

“Having the opportunity to have a more realistic game-type situation in that batting cage before you actually get out there and stand by the plate will be super helpful, especially to these upcoming freshmen that have never played at this varsity level before,” Liberi said.