Falmouth Softball Club Gives Girls A Place To Play And Grow

This story was awarded 3rd place at the 2022 New England Better Newspaper Competition by the New England Newspaper and Press Association for Best Sports Feature.

Baseball has long been a favorite summer pastime in Falmouth. Boys grow up playing Tee-ball, working their way through Little League and Babe Ruth, until finally reaching high school, where they will have their shot at varsity.

But very little—if any—attention has historically been paid to the young girls of Falmouth who wanted to play ball, too. The town softball team was lackluster, which left joining the boys’ baseball team the only viable option for girls looking to really compete.

Enter Jeff Cutter and Amy Bruce, two parents who were determined to give their young girls a place to learn the ropes, play the game and, above all, grow.

“We both had girls the same age—I think they were about 12 years old; her daughter was a pitcher and mine was a catcher—and we had played for the town team, which wasn’t very good, so we decided to start our own league,” Mr. Cutter said. “We got ourselves plugged in with all of the different towns and all that kind of stuff because really, the big problem was that our town didn’t have a feeder team for the high school. The high school team was disastrous, but we were trying to raise the standard there.”

The duo started the Falmouth Softball Club in 2013 and in the years since many of the players have entered high school, allowing the Falmouth Clippers to reap the benefits of finally having a feeder league. This year, Ms. Bruce coached the Clippers’ varsity softball team to its first undefeated season in school history. She said that the most rewarding aspect has been watching the girls who have gone through the program get better and seeing them grow not just on the field, but off of it as well.

“It’s been fantastic seeing them, how they grow, how their skill level has improved by the time they get to high school,” she said. “If there was no softball youth program, they’d have to play baseball up until they got to high school if they wanted to do this type of sport. I think it’s gotten more girls involved because a lot of girls don’t want to play with the boys or don’t feel comfortable with that. I’ve never seen such a good number of girls enjoy the sport and want to play it multiple seasons out of the year.”

When the league first started out, it had two teams for 3rd through 5th grade and another two teams for the 6th through 8th graders. This year it as expanded to include a team for children in kindergarten through 2nd grade.

“We had 19 kids come out for it, which is fantastic,” Ms. Bruce said. “We’re hoping to get more involvement; the number is still a little lower than I would like. It’s tough. I know we compete against lacrosse during the lacrosse season and a lot of girls go out for that. That’s why we started the K-2 program, to get them interested younger, and hopefully they’ll stick with it.”

Ms. Bruce, a lifelong Falmouth resident, played softball while attending Falmouth High School and still works alongside her former coach, who now coaches the junior varsity softball team.

“I would see the program each year just not getting where they needed to be because they didn’t have the feeder program and it was tough to watch,” Ms. Bruce said. “Some years they went without winning games. And then once these kids that went through the program finally hit the high school, they started winning games and went to the state tournament. It was really fun to watch.”

Mr. Cutter said that when the Falmouth Softball Club was created, the town had never won a championship. Three years later, the town team brought home its first league title and has since participated in and won various league tournaments.

“Those girls then went on to the high school team and they absolutely killed it,” Mr. Cutter said. “They really dominated the Cape. Before COVID was the first time that our town’s high school team actually went to the state tournament.…They went all the way up, they had a great year and it just kept on going. And then we had COVID, so there wasn’t much going on, but the girls stayed close and they came back this year and won the whole thing.”

The Falmouth Road Race, of which Mr. Cutter is a board member, has been instrumental in helping to secure funding for the club and improve existing conditions: the girls had been wearing hand-me-down uniforms from the boys’ baseball team, their equipment was inferior and there were no sheds or dugouts at their playing fields, which were themselves inadequate. Now, the new fields have all the necessary features, and the girls have their own uniforms and equipment, and a new sense of pride.

“You should see the smiles on their faces,” Mr. Cutter said. “You should see how they run out on that field proud. You should see how they’re just a good bunch of girls, who, given an opportunity, rose to the occasion. It just goes to show you that if you create opportunity, people will embrace it.”

Athletics aside, Mr. Cutter and Ms. Bruce agreed that the biggest mission of the program is to foster girl power and instill good values in young girls through sport.

“When I would coach these girls, I would say there’s two things that I or any other coach cannot teach you, and that is attitude and effort,” Mr. Cutter said. “If you bring attitude and effort, you’re going to do well. And that’s what you see in the high school team now. There’s such a wonderful attitude and such unbelievable effort. Those values carry through. It’s just a whole bunch of nice girls and they all work together and they’ve got great values, good integrity and hard work.… When you see these girls take that field, it’s just magical.”