AACC’s softball team added a 10th player in March after splitting a double-header on its opening day early this month with only nine women on the roster.

Softball head coach Guy Klingensmith expressed relief when the 10th player joined the team. A team with fewer than nine players on game day will forfeit the match.

“So that 10th [player] is a big help,” Klingensmith said. “It certainly has loosened up the group a little bit.”

The teams facing AACC have an average of 13 to 14 players on their rosters.

“We can’t play with eight,” Klingensmith said. “We would probably talk to the other [team] and say, ‘Hey, we got a girl with COVID-19. We got a girl injured.’ We [would] be able to adjust the date.”

Klingensmith said a roster with just 10 players is slim.

“It would make us feel a lot better if we had 11 or 12,” Klingensmith noted. “We’re stressed [and] everybody is stressed.”

Second-year radiology student Skylar Storm agreed. Because the team has so few players, each student has to play the full game every time, she said.

“It’s definitely a little stressful when it comes to the possibility of injury,” Storm, who plays third base, said.  “But at the end of the day we just played. We played so good [on opening day], and you have many more times to bat” with fewer players on the team.

Klingensmith said he is trying to recruit players through social media and by asking players to bring their friends on board.

“I think it’s more of a mental toll knowing that we only have [10] right now,” Klingensmith said.

Still, he said the players are not showing fatigue.

Second-year health science student Jaclyn Nevins said she is optimistic for a good season despite the shortage of players.

“I think we’re a strong group,” said Nevins, a pitcher and a shortstop. “So I really don’t think it matters that way.”