In two places at one time: Oran's softball team looks a lot like Oran's volleyball team

Sara Heisserer rarely experiences a morning when she can just turn off her alarm clock and sleep a few extra hours.

She did Saturday.

Sort of.

"I got up at 6:30 a.m. and I thought, 'Oh man, I slept in,'" Heisserer said. "Thank God we have energy drinks in this world."

Heisserer has had to stock up on a lot of energy drinks this fall, trading sips for sleep. The Oran physical education teacher has little time to rest because she coaches two varsity high school sports -- softball and volleyball.

Heisserer has nine athletes who are members of both sqauds. Five of them start on each team.

"That is what gets me through," Heisserer said. "I'm tired and I'm just coaching two sports. These girls are playing two sports."

For Heisserer and the others, their schedules have been packed with morning practices followed by school followed by more practice sessions or games followed by barely any time to relax. And things hardly are calming down with the softball team making a postseason run and vying for a spot in the state tournament.

The Eagles (14-2) won the Class 1 District 1 championship, beating Naylor 2-1 on Saturday, the day Heisserer had the chance to somewhat sleep in because the game took place later that afternoon. The girls advanced to today's sectional against Miller (24-2) with the victory. Callie Kielhofner will pitch for the Eagles. The senior two-sport athlete has a 12-2 record.

The coach and the players said their involvement in both softball and volleyball often has been both strenuous and exhausting. But they said they've gotten used to it and games like the big one today make it all worthwhile.

"In the beginning it was really hectic, but our bodies have gotten used to it," Kielhofner said. "We get up at 5 in the morning and give it our all and just tough it out. It's our [the seniors[']] last year playing sports so we might as well give it our all."

The softball program at Oran is in its first fall season, moving from the spring -- a decision that was finalized before Heisserer, an Oran alum, interviewed and accepted her positions last spring.

A graduate of Oran

Heisserer played volleyball, basketball and softball while at Oran. She is a 2005 graduate of Williams Baptist College in Walnut Ridge, Ark., where she starred in basketball. She taught for two years at Chaffee and worked as the volleyball head coach and assistant girls basketball coach before returning to her alma mater.

A typical day for Heisserer starts at 5 a.m. After getting ready for the school day, she arrives at the Oran gym by 5:30 to assemble the volleyball net and get everything else organized for practice. The volleyball session starts at 6 a.m., usually lasting for about an hour and a half. After school ends at 3:01 p.m., it is time for the softball team to practice, which usually runs from 3:15 to approximately 5:45 at the field.

After raking the field, Heisserer and the players finally return home for a brief rest before following the same routine the next day.

Heisserer keeps a positive attitude about the long, stressful days.

"I usually go home and watch the soaps I've recorded throughout the day," she said. "I TiVo 'The Young and the Restless' every day so I go home and watch that."

Heisserer, who has adopted various practice drills from her own high school and college coaches, said coaching the two programs has not been as tough as she first thought it would be because the softball team has played a number of home contests and because of a shorter volleyball schedule than most teams. The school, she said, worked the softball schedule around the volleyball one when softball changed seasons because of the interest so many girls had in both programs.

She said having never coached softball before added more stress at the beginning of the year. But she quickly got used to heading the team. And she's gotten used to the early hours.

Heisserer has been on time for every early morning practice, she said, although there was one morning when her girls thought she had overslept. She arrived later than usual because the net already had been set up the previous night.

"It was about 10 until 6, and one of them was calling me," Heisserer said. "And I was like, 'I'm on my way. I'm coming." We walked in and they were like, 'The net's up,' and I was like, 'I know. That's why I wasn't here at 5 in the morning.' They were like, 'Oh we thought you overslept.' I said, 'No, I was just taking my time.'"

Some of the players joked that they were hoping Heisserer had overslept so they could miss practice.

"We thought we were going to have the morning off and we didn't get that lucky that day," Kielhofner said. "It was a little upsetting, but we stuck it out."

Although the coach has always been on time, not all her players can say the same thing.

"The very first practice, I overslept ... I freaked out," junior Taylor Tenkhoff, another member of both teams, said. "It wears you out a lot and when we're really tired, we don't make any sense at all and we're very forgetful and we act really stupid."

Tenkhoff, Kielhofner and senior Alyson Seyer all said that when they first heard that softball would be moving to fall, they immediately made the decision to play both sports. But Seyer admitted there were times when she has questioned if she made the right choice.

"You're tired and then you have homework on top of it and you don't have very much free time," Seyer said. "During free time you just want to lie down and relax and sleep and stuff. But I couldn't imagine doing one and not the other."

Games nearly every day

The schedule has been grueling. Until mid-September, there was a volleyball or softball game almost every day, in addition to tournaments on the weekends.

"It was like six days straight that these girls had a practice and a game," Heisserer said. "So if there's nothing on the weekends, I don't schedule practice."

With the softball team winning the district title, Heisserer has made that sport a priority over volleyball. The volleyball team's record stands at 5-9.

Heisserer rested her two-sport athletes this past week, allowing them to miss volleyball practice because of the added chance that someone might get injured. And that's OK with her players.

"I can speak for most of the team that our major priority right now is softball because we definitely favor softball more because of our record and because we've really been better at softball," Kielhofner said. "It's time to get ourselves a banner. We're tired of looking at all the boys baseball banners. We are going to make our own one."