Softball Team Scared After Shots Ring Out During Practice

A softball team says someone shot at them while they practiced in Cherokee County on Friday night.

Players are scared to step back on the field.

The coach says he and about six girls were on the softball field when bullets started flying overhead, just feet away from the players.

Leslie Hannah spends his summer coaching his daughter's 12-and-under fastpitch softball team.

A scary incident is forcing him to find a new practice field.

"Right here is where we believe the bullet struck and then go through the fence,” Hannah said.

The team was an hour into practice on this field next to Briggs Elementary School, when they heard the shots.

"Honestly, we didn't think anything about it at first, we are out in rural Cherokee County,” Hannah said. “People shoot around here all the time."

He shouted to let others know there were people were out on the field. 

“Bullets stopped going over our heads and started coming right at us,” Hannah said.

Hannah estimates about 20 shots were fired, and at least two landed just a few feet from his 12-year-old daughter, Lexi, who was pitching.

“At first, we thought it was fireworks, and then we saw a bullet and knew it wasn't fireworks,”

Lexi says she was scared to take the field at the tournament the next day,

“I couldn't get it out of my head,” she said. “I kept thinking another shooter would try to come to those fields and try to shoot us again."