CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea—The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Far East District, softball team opened the fall softball league tournament with a win.
Todd Hill, a civil engineer, decided to organize a team after finding out about the fall tournament season. It has been four years since the district has had a team, which Brian Quiroga, a project manager, participated in previously.
Quiroga worked with the FED in 2015 as a construction control representative, and has since moved to other locations throughout Korea, but finally returned to the district headquarters this year. Quiroga serves as the team’s coach and shared his thoughts and expectations for the fall league.
“I have to give the credit to Todd Hill,” said Quiroga. “He organized everything, I had the thoughts of doing it but I had just arrived here and I didn’t know when the season started, but I saw an email from Todd basically stating that he wanted to put a team together and I thought that was great.”
Quiroga has experience as a coach from when he was in the Air Force and assigned to Daegu.
Most of the teams within the league are made up of military members, however, the district is mostly staffed by civilians. Quiroga stated that his expectations for the team are high because of the roster of talented players participating.
“We have a lot of good hitters on this team and we played great defense in the first game,” said Quiroga. “So my hope is that we can continue to keep playing good defense because that is what is going to win the game.”
According to Quiroga, expectations weren’t high for the first game as everyone was a bit nervous and it was his first time coaching in a long time.
“We came out and our hitting was just as good as in practice and we got off to an early lead. We never relinquished the lead, and we won by a pretty good margin,” said Quiroga. “Everybody had fun and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves that game.”
Quiroga feels that the impact of having a softball team and winning games will have a positive impact on the district.
”People talk about the fact that we won a game and it’s kind of contagious,” said Quiroga. “I hope to see some of the people from the organization come out and watch. Especially if we advance to the playoffs.”