ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — The 10 a.m. departure time for Emmitsburg, Maryland, came and went.
Brooke Kane-Walker and her St. Bonaventure softball teammates were preparing to board a bus for a three-day swing at Mount St. Mary’s when they were told by coach Mike Threehouse to hang tight.
The fourth-year shortstop and the team’s four other seniors sat in Kane-Walker’s off-campus house last Thursday, spending the next several hours clicking the refresh button on their laptops and fearing the worst.
The Ivy League had already canceled its spring sports season due to fears over COVID-19, and the Patriot League soon followed. One by one, all of the major conferences began to do the same. Then came the final blow, in a tweet from the NCAA softball account, at 4:16 p.m.:
“NCAA cancels remaining winter and spring (seasons).”
Kane-Walker was crushed. Just like that, a mere nine games into her final campaign, her softball career had come to an end.
“I WALKED into Coach’s office; he just looked at me and shook his head,” she recalled. “My heart sank and I was just in complete shock, and I just couldn’t even fathom the fact that it was over and that we played our last games already.
“I just had this lump in my throat. It kind of took everything away from me in the moment.”
Bona softball was among the hundreds of collegiate casualties in the surreal 24-hour stretch in which sports went from the verge of perhaps the most exciting month on the calendar to a complete standstill.
Threehouse described this day, March 12, 2020, as the “toughest day of my sporting life.”
Ally Haskell, one of four former Big 30 standouts on the Bona roster, alongside Kane-Walker (Smethport), Alyssa Ramarge (Olean) and Macy Miller (Fillmore), was stunned. For the last 10-plus years, her springs had revolved around softball and being with her teammates and coaches.
Haskell, a sophomore, mostly felt for the five seniors whose careers — pending the NCAA’s decision on granting eligibility relief to spring sport athletes — may have come to an end last Thursday.
“We had a team meeting on the field, and it was hard and there were tears,” Haskell said. “We all got there and then the seniors walked in, and I think that was the hardest part. When they walked in everybody kind of lost it because it was their last year and nobody really expected it to end this way.”
FOR KANE-WALKER, among the most difficult aspects of a lost season is missing out on what might have been.
The Bonnies, who have struggled in recent years, brought back a bulk of their roster from last season, including Kane-Walker, arguably the team’s top overall hitter in 2019, and Haskell, a second-year starting pitcher.
Bona had aspirations of pushing for its first season at .500 or better since 2007 and its first trip to the Atlantic 10 Tournament since 2008, when it finished in a program-best second place at 11-7.
And though it was just 2-7 through those first nine games, the fact it had lost its last four by a combined 11 runs suggested that maybe it had begun to turn a corner.
“One thing that came to my mind right in the beginning of all this was: This was supposed to be our year for Bonnies softball,” said Kane-Walker, the 2016 Big 30 Co-Player of the Year. “This was the year that we were supposed to just really turn things around, come out on top and have a great year.
“We were all excited for it … to have it taken away, it really hit us hard. I guess I was just at a loss for words, and I’m still at a loss for words.”
INITIALLY, and understandably, Kane-Walker and Haskell looked inwardly at the profound effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
No more Senior Day.
No more games in front of their parents.
No year-end cookout with their teammates and families.
Kane-Walker wouldn’t get her final go-around. Haskell, the only five-time Big 30 all-star, wouldn’t get to build off a promising freshman campaign.
Then they thought about the multitude of people affected by the coronavirus — how this goes beyond Division I athletics — and their mentality changed.
“Obviously, after taking a step back, I just realized, how could I even say that?” Kane-Walker said. “Everybody’s being affected, every senior athlete is being affected, every player is being affected, not just in softball. How could I say that about me when everybody’s affected and people’s health is in danger?”
Added Haskell, set to return for at least another two seasons: “We’re just trying to have a good perspective on it — work hard and be even better for next season. Every good-weather day we’ve had so far, my dad and I have been at the field working and trying to get better and stronger to hopefully have a good season next year.”
For Haskell and others, including current seniors, who will reportedly be granted a blanket waiver for an extra season of eligibility, there will be a next year.
For Kane-Walker, however, this is it.
THE 2016 Smethport graduate, who led the Bonnies in hits (41), RBIs (27), total bases (57) and slugging percentage (.425) and was second in batting average (.306) last season, had already made post-graduate plans to attend Slippery Rock in the fall and earn a doctorate in physical therapy.
She considered playing a final year with the D-II “Rock,” but decided against it in the interest of time for her program and not wanting to move on without her Bona teammates.
Kane-Walker’s legacy, then, is helping to lay the foundation for a program set on becoming competitive again in the near future. It’s the beginning of a book that Haskell and the other returning Bonnies hope to continue writing.
“Our team was very close this year, and our coaches said they realized that,” said Haskell, who threw a team-best 84 2/3 innings as a true freshman last spring and pitched Bona to a 4-3 win over Western Michigan earlier this month.
“Our seniors were great leaders. So it’s going to be hard losing them next year, but we also talked about not losing what they’ve built and how our team is working together and the hard work that we put in, and not losing that during this time that we have off or next season without those seniors, and without a full year with them leading us.”
FOR KANE-WALKER, it would be easy to be bitter about having her senior season pulled out from underneath her by something so unfair and so out of her control.
She could, and has, asked, “Why me? Why now?”
Rather than fixate on the negatives, however, she’s chosen to reflect on all the good that has come from her nearly four years at Bona and a career that produced a handful of memorable moments, such as her 2-for-3 day with a home run and double in an 11-1 win over Robert Morris last April.
“St. Bonaventure’s my home, Joyce Field is my home,” she said. “My teammates are absolutely amazing and I have no doubt that they’re going to continue this attitude and to strive for success in future years.
“Bona has given me absolutely everything, from a family to endless opportunities to connections with alumni. I wouldn’t trade this experience for the entire world — that goes out to my coaches, teammates, professors, my parents, everybody … Bonaventure has done amazing things for me.”
(J.P. Butler, Bradford Publishing Company group sports editor, can be reached at jbutler@oleantimesherald.com)
