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Published June 27, 2017 at 10:00 a.m.
The Colchester Thunder, a Little League team comprised of a dozen 7- and 8-year-old girls, took the baseball field by storm this spring, finishing their regular season with a 9-1 record against the four all-boys teams in their town's A-Minor league. In previous years, the girls who had opted to play baseball in Colchester were put on teams that were primarily made up of boys, which "socially wasn't a good experience for them," explained one of the Thunder's four coaches and a team parent, Pat McBride. "The girls were just minimized based on the ratios on the teams." He realized other parents of baseball-playing girls felt similarly, so they floated the idea of an all-girls team to the Colchester Youth Baseball and Softball League in the off-season. When sign-up time came around, the numbers worked out in their favor — 12 first- and second-grade girls signed up for the league, the perfect number for a team. Spectators and competing teams initially didn't give the Thunder's all-female status much thought, said McBride, but as the season progressed and the girls kept winning, "people started to notice that there was something about this group," he said. "Less the gender and more just how much fun they were having." This summer, the team will meet to practice together and figure out whether they'll try to recreate their winning formula next baseball season.
This article was originally published in Seven Days' monthly parenting magazine, Kids VT.
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About The Author
Alison Novak
Bio:
Alison is the former managing editor at Kids VT, Seven Days' parenting publication and writes about education for Seven Days.
Alison is the former managing editor at Kids VT, Seven Days' parenting publication and writes about education for Seven Days.
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