OLD TOWN, Maine — It’s not unusual to see a high school quarterback looking at a wristband with plays written on it, but it’s uncommon to see a high school softball player doing so.
Old Town High School assistant softball coach/pitching coach Jeff Hayward was watching a college softball game on television a year ago and observed the players and coaches using wristbands.
So he went to head coach Jenn Plourde and asked her about the feasibility of implementing them.
“He asked me if we had money for it,” said Plourde. “We had just gotten back from our Florida trip and I was unsure if we had money in the budget for them. I told him, ‘Maybe not this year, but I think we might be able to do it next year.’”
They have successfully implemented the Own the Zone Sports wristband sign system this season. Old Town took a 4-0 record into a Thursday game at Ellsworth.
Plourde said it cost approximately $300 for the wristbands and access to a computer software website that goes with it for $50 per year.
Old Town has 10 wristbands, one for each player in the game, and on the wristbands are rows of numbers and letters. They vaguely resemble a bingo card and there is a plastic covering.
Plourde or Jeff Hayward will call out or signal by hand a three-digit number that will correspond to a particular pitch, an offensive strategy such as a bunt or hit-and-run and a defensive maneuver.
The players will glance at the wristband to pick up the sign.
Hayward calls the pitches and Plourde handles the hitters and defensive signals.
Before they had wristbands, Plourde would give signs to hitters in the traditional way through hand gestures and the catcher would signal the pitcher by dangling fingers corresponding to the particular pitch and move to the side of the plate where she wanted the pitch.
“This prevents teams from stealing our signs,” said Plourde, who is in her fifth season at Old Town. “It seemed complicated when I first showed it to the girls. It was overwhelming. But once I wrote it down and showed them how to read it, they understood it in one practice.”
“We got used to it pretty quickly. It has become really easy,” junior catcher Natalie St. Louis said. “Modern technology has come to softball and it has helped us out a lot.”
It does require some memorization.
“But we have a pretty smart group,” said senior first baseman Kayla Hayward. “It definitely gives us a leg up.”
“I really like it,” said freshman pitcher Olivia Albert. “It gets all the coaches and players involved. Everyone knows what they are supposed to be doing.”
“It’s kind of interesting because they’ll give one player a signal and everyone can look down to the wristband to see what the person is going to do,” said Hayward.
“It’s a very good program. It’s easy to do,” Plourde said. “We can change the code during a game.”
Plourde said they are likely to change the information on the bands the second time they see a team this season to keep the opponent off-balance.