When Battle Ground High School softball coach Hailey St. Peter realized they wouldn’t have enough players to form a slow pitch softball team this year, she didn’t throw in the towel. She started asking around, eventually discovering that Heritage High School in the Evergreen School District was also short of a full team. Heritage softball head coach Lacey Olesen was actually St. Peter’s coach at Prairie High School, which she graduated from in 2018.
“It kind of became this beautiful marriage of old friends and former coaches coming together,” said Kaylee Pughe, the JV softball coach at Heritage. “Now, even the girls on the team have built these great friendships.”
The coaches discovered that the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association allows schools to form co-ops in certain sports where it may be difficult for them to form a full team. Eventually they settled on a name: The Tigerwolves, an amalgam of the Tigers of Battle Ground High School and the Timberwolves of Heritage. The team is made up of 13 players from Battle Ground High School, Heritage High School, CAM Academy and one from Washougal High School.
“They’ve been able to forge some friendships that might not have ever happened,” said Chris St. Peter, Hailey St. Peter’s dad and a volunteer assistant on the team. “It’s just great how they get along in this fun, awesome environment. Really couldn’t ask anything more for the girls.”
The team was forced to miss a few games while they figured out how the co-op would work. Home games and practices are held at Heritage, where they have artificial turf fields. Battle Ground Public Schools has worked to arrange transportation when possible, but parents have also stepped in to make sure the players get to practices and games.
“It’s been really fun to grow with other people and see each other improve and love the sport together,” said Reese Stevenson, a junior at Heritage. “Even though a lot of us are from different schools, we can all unite and do something together. It’s kind of empowering, in a way.”
“It was kind of like a forced teamwork thing,” joked Emma Hulsey, a freshman at BGHS, “but we all ended up becoming good friends.”
While they haven’t been able to put together any wins quite yet, the players and coaches say they’re mainly enjoying the experience of just being able to play and bond together.
“We have won every game in regards to how we feel when we walk off of the field,” said Chris St. Peter. “Are the girls smiling and having fun? For us, that’s the wins we’re after.”
