January 13, 2025

Members of East Mississippi Community College’s softball team now have their own combination locker and dressing room, as well as a lobby that serves as both a recreation area and meeting space.

Work wrapped up this past summer to enclose open-air, covered batting cages with a pitching lane and convert it into a field house for the Lions softball team that has been dubbed the “Softball Complex.”

“We enclosed the two open sides and spray-insulated the entire structure,” EMCC District Director of Facilities Planning and Management Kyle Younger said. “Then, we converted one of the batting lanes inside into a recreation room and locker room area, with an office above.”

There is an entryway with seating that leads to the recreation and lobby area that is equipped with couches and chairs, two wall-mounted televisions, ping pong tables and Nintendo and PlayStation gaming systems. The area, which also serves as a team meeting space, boasts a kitchenette with a refrigerator/freezer, sink and microwave.

The softball team’s first game of the season is scheduled for Feb. 5 at home versus Shelton State Community College.

“There are a lot of advantages to having the Softball Complex,” said Rachel Rommel, a Poplar Bluff, Missouri native who serves as a catcher and outfielder for the softball team. “We now have a place where all of us can get together and hang out as a team before games. We can come in here, play a game of ping pong, practice in the batting cages and talk about the game.”

There are also 24 lockers, which is enough to ensure each player has her own locker space if the team is at full roster. Each locker provides space to hang uniforms or clothes and lockable storage areas at the top and bottom.

“We are really excited about the new facility and having a locker room where the players can change before home games is great,” EMCC head softball coach Mackenzie Byrd said. “Before, the girls were having to change before they came to the facility. The building also provides them a place to store their equipment so they aren’t having to carry it back and forth, which is a big help.”

 Off the locker room are two pitching and batting lanes that are heated and cooled, along with a restroom that contains a washer and dryer to clean team uniforms. An office for coaching staff was added upstairs.

The total cost for the renovations was about $350,000, with about $80,000 of the funds provided through private donations to the EMCC Development Foundation. A subcontractor was hired to frame the enclosure, with EMCC maintenance staff providing finishing work, such as electrical, plumbing, paint and equipment installation.

Finishing touches include mood lighting, a generous use of EMCC logos and accent pieces in the school’s colors of red and black.

“This is definitely going to help us with recruiting softball players,” Byrd said of the facility. “There are other colleges in the state that have similar facilities, but the locker room and lobby area we have are exceptional and no one in our conference can compete with that.”

Completed in 2009, EMCC’s softball field also ranks high in amenities with spacious dugouts, a multi-purpose press box and convenient concession stand availability. 

A 28,000-square-foot building was erected at the nearby Gerald Poole Field baseball complex in 2021 that serves as the baseball team’s locker room, recreational area and meeting space.

“We have some of the best student athletes in the state who excel not only in their respective sports but in the classroom as well,” EMCC Dean of Students and Director of Athletics Sharon Thompson said. “We are grateful to our administrators and Board of Trustees for their support of our student athletes through projects like the Softball Complex.”