Three area softball teams will have a three-day layoff before they take the field again in their respective championship series. 

Enterprise and Philadelphia will resume play at 10 a.m. Monday at Mississippi State University’s Nusz Park, while Newton County and Tishomingo County will play 30 minutes following the conclusion of the Enterprise-Philadelphia contest. The postponement was made due to expected weather in the Starkville area.

“I wish we could have started later on in the evening,” Dewitt said of Monday’s contest. “I still think we’ll have a good crowd, but probably not as good as if it was later. A lot of people were coming (Friday) and they took off of work and got turned around. We had a lot of people coming. I hope that same crowd will come back Monday.”

If necessary, Enterprise and Philadelphia will play Game 3 at noon Tuesday, and Newton County and Tishomingo County will start 30 minutes after.

“For our game, I think they made the right call,” said Newton County coach Justin Chaney, whose team earned a Game 1 win Thursday. “I didn’t want to have to get into the middle of the game and there be a delay, especially with Monday expected to be pretty. We’ll get ready to go Monday now.”

Philadelphia head coach David Frey said his team was taking batting practice at the high school early Friday morning when he was informed of the MHSAA’s decision to reschedule Game 2.

“Honestly, I thought it was smart,” Frey said. “Because say you get through with five innings and rain comes — it’s ball game. No matter what the score is, it’s ball game. If we would have been up 5-4 at the end of the fifth, or they would have been up 5-4 at the end of the fifth, and they called it and that was ball game, one of us would have been upset about it because you have two more innings.”

Following Enterprise’s 8-4 victory against Philadelphia Thursday afternoon, MHSAA officials informed both teams’ coaching staffs Game 2  was rescheduled for 10 a.m. Friday, a three-and-a-half hour earlier start than originally scheduled.

With such an early Friday start, Enterprise’s softball team and a number of players’ parents opted to stay in Starkville Thursday night. But at 7:20 a.m. Friday, Enterprise head coach Davey Dewitt received notification from the MHSAA that all games that day had been postponed to Monday. 

Dewitt said the Lady Bulldogs missed half a day of classes Friday, as players returned to Enterprise around 11:20 a.m.

“It affects you,” Dewitt said. “That’s why we’re going up Sunday night because the bus ride is draining. We’re going to hit and get the girls in bed kind of early, and get up Monday morning and go hit again and get ready and just see what we can do at 10 o’clock.”