More News

Softball is fast-paced, strategic and requires great athleticism.

Unfortunately, Montgomery County lags far behind the rest of the state — Gaithersburg's 1999 state championships remains the most recent of the county's six, beginning in 1976 — and much of the country in the sport's competitive magnitude.

Fourth-year Magruder coach Ed Hendrickson cannot take it anymore.

Disappointed with the abundance of fundamental errors still committed at the varsity level, Hendrickson — who turned the Montgomery College club team into a varsity program in 2000 and also coached at Columbia Union College (now Washington Adventist University) — decided it was time to take action.

In March 2009, along with former Poolesville coach Rick Dorsey, Hendrickson co-founded Striders Fastpitch Academy Inc. The academy was conceived as a place where county athletes go strictly to hone their skills with experienced women's softball coaches. In January, they took over a warehouse in Rockville and turned it into an indoor training facility.

"You go out to these varsity games and how many balls between the legs do you see? How many overthrows?" Hendrickson asked. "You go to some of these travel team practices and they're working on pickoffs and trick plays, but the fundamentals are missing. That's what we're trying to do, establish really solid fundamentals: how to move to get the ball, the motion. Routine plays should be made routinely, then exceptional plays."

Part of Hendrickson's motivation was to help his Colonels, who have struggled since making consecutive state tournament appearances in 2001 and 2002. But for Hendrickson, whose daughter Laura graduated Magruder in '02 and was a three-year starting catcher at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, satisfaction will come when the whole county catches up.

The company is not affiliated with any of the area's numerous travel organizations. It does, however, collaborate with them.

The training center currently has 120 girls from various other organizations — including MVSA Storm, Red Raiders, and Olney Boys & Girls Club — on its rapidly growing e-mail registration list. Their staff includes Gazette All-Decade pitcher Brooke Hughes, Hendrickson's daughter Laura, University of Maryland-Baltimore County pitching coach Lauren Nicholson and former professional player Jenn Shellhammer, who each travel to other facilities to lend their expertise.

Hendrickson himself lends out his facility to other organizations, such as the Clarksburg-based Red Raiders. With 275 girls, they are one of the largest organizations in Montgomery County, but do not have their own facility.

"Unfortunately, [the travel clubs] don't work together," Red Raiders president Brad Roseker said. "But that is why we completely stay away from that. No one wants to work together, so we do our own thing. It's extremely important that Ed has this place where people can go just to work on softball and it's not about a team."

Striders is still in its formative stages. It already has top-of-the-line equipment, like its video assessment program. Hendrickson and Dorsey are also trying to raise money to purchase a $10,000 pitching machine that will spin multiple types of pitches.

This past winter, they enlisted the help of college coaches from George Mason, UMBC and Mt. St. Mary's, among others.

"One of the reasons I started the company is because I know the game, I've coached the game at the college level and I understand what this game is capable of being," Hendrickson said. "These kids don't know the game that I love. I pledge no colors; I'm not looking to support any club in particular. I just want [Striders] to be a place where kids can go to get quality instruction and have quality equipment and a place to work."