Opposing softball teams have a little something to think about when they come to ConVal. As their buses roll in, they’ll be greeted with an imposing sight: the freshly painted dugouts, complete with claw marks.
Sasha Brock and Kayla Rose Davie, both now ConVal graduates, got together in their senior year and teamed up on a project that will ensure their mark is left for years to come.
“We wanted to spruce up our front yard,” said athletic director Mark Swasey. So, he enlisted Brock, an All-State centerfielder and artist, and Davie, one of ConVal’s co-carpenters, to paint a mural on the softball dugouts, visible from Route 202 and essentially the entrance to the athletic fields.
What they created, however, was more than just a mural. Brock came up with the design — ‘ConVal’ on one dugout, ‘Cougars’ on the other — yellow and blue, with the Cougar claw marks evident in Brock’s other murals around the school. Then, Davie, who’s done carpentry on the athletic barn and built the wooden bridge at the so-called “Freshman Pond,” cut the letters out of wood.
“These guys collaborated into something far more than we had ever envisioned,” Swasey said.
The duo mounted the letters, painted them and went over them with a clear coat. The results were phenomenal.
“It makes it pop!” Davie said of the design.
“Our school is gorgeous as it is,” Brock said, “and then you add a little more color, it makes it a little more clean and nice and sharp.”
Brock, who represented ConVal in multiple sports contests over her four years, now literally leaves her legacy on the field where she played.
“When I come back and drive by or if I have kids, it will be nice to say, ‘I did that,’” Brock said. “It’s another reason to leave your mark on your own school.”
And Davie, by now an accomplished carpenter, gets a leg up in her field.
“I can put it on my resume,” Davie said. “It kind of keeps building me up the ladder, and I learn more and more. I love it.”
Sports Editor Ben Conant can be reached at 924-7172, ext. 226, or bconant@ledgertranscript.com.