NATCHEZ — This year, the Cathedral girls’ softball team has something to look forward to other than the regular season — their own field.

Cathedral has been in the process of building their own field since July and will host their first home game on it March 3.

“We’ll have a good crowd. Everybody is really excited,” head coach Gary Blackwell said. “The school and the fans are really supportive. We’ve had a lot of volunteers and businesses that have donated their time and materials to help us build the field.

Cathedral has hosted its home games at Natchez High’s field in the past.

The Lady Green Wave field is near completion. The backstop net, foul poles and a scoreboard are the only things left to place on their new home turf.

“We should have everything up within two weeks, other than our scoreboard,” Blackwell said.

The lights, Blackwell said, will not be put up this season. Therefore, they will play most of their games around 4 p.m.

Cathedral’s softball program is young, but has taken big strides since it began.

“Our softball program is growing. We started five years ago so we’re young,” Blackwell said. “We’ve been growing each year.”

The Lady Green Wave lost two seniors from last year’s squad and they do not have a senior on this year’s squad. They are a young team, for sure, but what they lack in years, they make up for in experience.

“We’ve been to the second round of the playoffs the past two seasons. We’ve been doing it with 10 and 11 girls on the team, this year we have 18,” Blackwell said. “I’ll have enough for a full JV and Varsity squad. We’re a young team that looks forward to going to the state playoffs.”

Junior Beth Fortenbery, who has been playing for Cathedral’s softball team since she was in the seventh grade, is excited to have her own field.

“We’ve always battled for practice time with other schools and it was hard to schedule games. It’s nice to have our own home field. It’ll make us more confident,” Fortenbery said.

Sophomore Shannon Mire feels the same way.

“It’ll bring bigger crowds now and we’ll have more support,” Mire said.

The Lady Green Wave practiced on their field Sunday.

“It was the first time we were able to get on the field,” Blackwell said. “We had a great practice because the girls were so excited.”