This year marked the 30th season of the Bennett’s Creek Women’s Softball League that continues to serve as a haven for different generations of women looking for an outlet and interested in continuing or even starting their experience on the diamond.

“You come out here, you don’t have any kids to worry with, no husbands, no nothing — it’s just you, just you on the field with your team, and it’s just a lot of fun,” said Nancy McCrickard during Saturday’s end of the season tournament at John Yeates Middle School.

She has enjoyed every year of the league’s existence, having played for the last 29, before choosing to become a spectator this season, cheering on her daughter, who plays for one of the league’s five teams.

“You look forward to it,” McCrickard said of the league, noting that during the year, your children are busy playing, “and then you know when July comes, you’re going to get to play, and that makes a world of difference.”

Twenty-eight-year-old softball player Ali Mowry said the league is “a great opportunity. I grew up playing little league out of Bennett’s Creek.” She continued at Nansemond River High School, then pursued her education and a field hockey career in college.

After returning to the area, she said, “I knew I wanted to keep playing softball.”

The league is for women ages 18 and up and had its heaviest concentration of players this year in the 30- to 40-year-old range.

“We’ve had a lot of new players this year, but it’s real quick — everybody begins to know everybody,” McCrickard said. “You don’t stay on the same team.”

Helping make this happen each year is a blind draft held near the end of May. Play begins later on in the summer.

“The kids are still playing in June, so we wait until the children are finished, and our season usually starts the second week of July,” McCrickard said.

The women try to wrap things up before Labor Day, around the time their children are heading back to school.

McCrickard said the league’s schedule “revolves around the kids and the women’s families.”

The league itself is wrapped up in family. McCrickard had been teammates in the league with her 36-year-old daughter, Kelly Buley, for over 15 years.

League secretary Jeannie Brinkley plays with her daughter, Ashley Story, on the Teal team, which won the regular season title this year via an 18-6 record.

“My mom played out here in the women’s league, too,” said Mowry, also a Teal team member.

And the BCWSL features players from a diverse array of cities.

“We opened our borders a long time ago, and some of the girls are from Chesapeake or Portsmouth and some of them are from Zuni, up that way, too, because we’re the only women’s league around here, besides city leagues,” McCrickard said.

She expressed her gratitude to the Nansemond River Pony Baseball League for sharing the fields behind John Yeates, and noted the women try to help out that league by raising funds for it.