Time to Retire? Kirkwood 18, Webster 9

Give Kirkwood credit. We jumped out to a 6-run lead, but the Pioneers refused to circle their wagons and hunker down. Instead, they went on the attack, ran the bases aggressively, continued to put pressure on us, and we cracked, dropping our overall record to 9-7.

With two players injured and two more just out of their sick beds, we had trouble adjusting both mentally and physically. The 9-run deficit does not reflect the difference between the teams. I think we win 4 or 5 times if we play them 10 times, but the Kirkwood coaching staff has done a great job of improving their program.

But if I've ever lost to Kirkwood as a JV coach, I don't remember it; we won the last two years in extra innings each time, results reflective of their improving program. Oh, the shame....

We swung the bats pretty well, paced by Alina Castro's 4-for-4 game, which included a 2-run homer in the first. However, we had trouble getting the ball to stick in our gloves; neither did we seem as mentally sharp as in previous games and had trouble responding to their aggressive base running.

That happens, so you move on, keep working hard (no complaints on that score), and work for a win against Northwest Cedar Hill tomorrow. Then we try to finish our last week of the season with a rush. We will only have a 23-game schedule as McClure North changed their mind about making up the rainout which was scheduled, and then unscheduled, for October 5. 

So we'll finish at the Hancock Tournament and try to defend our championship status. 

Summit Feeling Blue: Webster 14, Summit 8

If you're ever tempted to complain about bad calls, remember this game. I think we win anyway, but I felt bad for Summit, who came out on the short end of almost every call in the field, including one where I called our runner out from the third-base coaching box, only to be overruled by the field ump. They may have been seeing red more than feeling blue, but they were gracious in the post-game and didn't take their (deserved) hard feelings out on us on a beautiful day for softball.

Despite having two players on the DL (Karlee Scholtes, concussion symptoms, Olivia Weik, flu), we used our speed and aggressive base running to push the agenda and open up a 12-3 lead. We couldn't push it over the 10-run rule, in part because of some curious base running of our own and questionable coaching decisions over in the third-base box.

Nevertheless, Josie Krueger earned her fifth win by taking over in the circle in Inning 2 and finishing out the game, showing good control with only 2 walks. Julia Love had a very strong game at second and the plate and Nicole Preston took advantage of her opportunity with 2 hits, 2 RBI, 2 putouts and an OF assist. Her strong back up allowed our substitute center fielder Alina Castro to be aggressive to the ball, freezing a runner and giving Nicole the chance to make the force out at second. 

Becca DeGreeff knocked in 4 runs with her two hits, including a triple and Josie, Alina, Caroline and Emma (who now has 27 RBI in just 14 games) each added a couple more to pace our 16-hit attack. 

Despite Olivia's absence we continued to see strong OF play and our IF was good, as well. Once again, a solid team effort resulted in our fourth win a row. We travel to Kirkwood Wednesday in another conference game that should present a challenge. Hope to see a lot of orange in the stands that afternoon.

In the meantime, here's today's box and some great shots from AmyJo Love. (Thanks, Amy)

Speed Kills: Webster 10, Festus 6

When you don't quit and keep battling, you give yourself a chance to win. When you are opportunistic and take advantage of what the opponents hand you, you add to your chances. When you have the speed to push the agenda, forcing the other team into a pace that makes them uncomfortable, you increase your odds. When you get all three in combination, you end up with a big 10-6, come-from-behind win over a pretty good Festus team. This win marks our second comeback win in a row over that Jefferson County program.

Our pitching tandem of Josie Krueger and Allyson Peters, shepherded by our sophomore catcher, Becca DeGreeff, kept the Festus offense in check, aided by a stout defense from both the innies and the outies. Emma Hintze paced the offense with two hits, including a triple to put an exclamation mark on the seventh inning, and 3 RBI. Olivia Weik padded her team-leading total with 4 additional stolen bases, but her teammates Alina Castro, Zoe Schulz, Emma Hintze, Julia Love, Jenna Hoffman and Josie Krueger helped out and were lucky to get out of town before the local police force arrived and charged the whole gang with grand theft.

It was a well-played game in both dugouts, but the decisive 5-run seventh inning hinged on speed and more speed, constant first and thirds that turned into second and thirds and safe calls at the plate. We just blew through Festus defense in a cloud of roadrunner dust. Poor Coyote. (Okay, they're actually the Tigers, but I like the other metaphor better.)

Last year I implied some dissatisfaction with the Festus coach, but given the respect and pleasant reception we received this year, I'm wondering if I misinterpreted or misunderstood. In any case, I'll welcome seeing them on next year's schedule anticipating another good game. And speaking of good games and playing good teams, we will entertain conference foe Summit at home on Monday on a little roll with our three victories this week.

Playing Well Against a Weak Team: Webster 16, Parkway North 0

Parkway North didn't look like a team coming off an 18-4 win yesterday, as the Statesmen, despite being down two players due to illness or injury, put the game out of reach right from the start with an 11-run first inning, ended only with a deliberate "leaving early" call. We tacked on 4 in the second and an additional run in the third. Meanwhile, behind Allyson Peters strong turn in the circle and excellent defense on the infield, we played like we were playing a team that could mount a threat.

It may seem an easy task to beat a weak team, but that's not really true. There is a tendency to "play down" to the level of competition. To a certain extent that happened Monday against Ritenour, but not today against the Vikings. We didn't go to sleep, get sloppy, and, in fact, turned in some of our strongest defense of the year, including a non-traditional double play, scored 5-3-6 engineered by Julia Love, Alina Castro and Zoe Schulz. Emma Hintze continued to drive in runs by the bunch and both Olivia Weik and Skyler Jones took advantage of the blowout to work on some advanced skills with their slapping game.

All in all, this game offered us a chance to be ready for a tough match tomorrow against against Festus down at Sunset Park.

Making Mush (of the Huskies) Webster 23, Ritenour 8

Not our best game, by far. We played down to the competition, a little, but Ritenour is a tough place to play -- lots of distractions and noise (football in the background), an uncertain field and a floating strike zone. A "lost bus" (the company's explanation, which I'm not buying; in this age of radio communication and GPS, how lost could a bus get?!?) also put the rush on game prep as we didn't arrive at RHS until 4:15 and got started on just past 4:30. We were able to do a thorough inspection of the area in front of Roberts Gym at WGHS, however, and did not find any safety issues.

The first inning was only one of the four we didn't bat around; we scored just 3 runs with 8 batters. After that we did a generally good job of adjusting to the slower speed of their pitchers and, while we stopped stealing after the second inning, still put pressure on their very shaky defense with aggressive base running.

Every player again saw significant playing time again, always a good thing. Josie Krueger won her fourth game and joined Olivia Weik, Zoe Schulz, Emma Hintze and Julia Love with multi-hit games. We got our first put-out at first base with a throw from RF (Karlee Scholtes), proving why we practice that particular play. The conference win evens our record at 1-1 with another conference foe on the agenda for Wednesday as we travel to Parkway North. Road Warrior Week concludes with a trip to Festus on Thursday. We'll see who takes on the role of Imperator Furiosa for that game.

Congratulations to Olivia Weik who earned a well-served promotion and will travel with varsity to the Liberty Tournament this weekend as a potential courtesy runner.

New Location, Same Result: Parkway Central Tournament

We moved this year from the Francis Howell Tournament the last weekend in September to the Parkway Central Tournament closer to the midway mark of the season. The timing is better and we hoped the competition would be a little more balanced. 

There was still some carryover in teams (Timberland and Hazelwood West, both of whom we faced Saturday, of course), and the competition is uneven, but that is the nature of the beast, not just in JV softball but occasionally on the varsity level, as well. We felt like this tournament might allow us a better assessment, a mid-term grade, if you will. It also offers the (unneeded this year) potential to reschedule should weather become an issue.

But most of all, the FH Tourney had stopped being fun. We would travel a long way for a butt-kicking in the first game (ever since we came in second a few years ago we found ourselves in an extremely tough bracket – coincidence?), followed by a lopsided game in the other direction in Game 2, culminating in another butt-kicking in the finale (“consolation championship”). In other words, we weren’t really getting any opportunity to learn anything. A personal conflict that weekend aside, we had already talked to Activities Director Collins about finding a new tournament, and so we jumped at the chance when Parkway Central called.

We opened up against a very weak DuBourg Cavaliers squad. That program has made progress recently, but apparently took a step back this year. Josie Krueger pitched a 3-inning no hitter, walks were abundant, and the game ended with 2 outs in the bottom of the third, 15-0. The only real upside was the chance to give every play an AB, some of which weren’t planned.

It also gave us (too much) time to wait for the end of the game to determine our next opponent, a match of Kirkwood vs. Hazelwood West that went into extra innings. Hazelwood West took advantage of the rematch (we had defeated them 8-4 earlier) and with the help of a generous strike zone, and won easily, 10-1, as their pitched notched 11 of the 15 outs via KO. We played okay but never really mounted a threat. Had we been able to put the ball in play, as we did at our house a couple weeks ago, the result might have been different.

That set us up to play a new opponent, Fort Zumwalt West, in the third place game. They had just lost a tough contest to Timberland and were in a foul mood, thinking that game had cost them a chance to influence the course of world events or something. In any case, despite a 2-run bomb by Zoe Schulz, they broke the contest open with a 7-run fourth inning and scored the 10-run victory one out shy of finishing the 5^th inning. Not that it would have mattered, because we ran out of time, as well.

We were able to keep our promise that every girl would get one full game of batting and fielding, and the inevitability of the first and last game allowed us to provide playing time for the bench, as well. Even though we finished with a 1-2 record for the tournament (the same as the past few years out at Francis Howell), we felt like we had more competitive, balanced games, even if the outcomes were pretty clear early.

As far as mid-term grades go, Coach Cerutti and I feel like we may have turned the corner in team energy. The girls seem to be coming together in terms of commitment and team identity. We are pleased with their progress, both as softball players and teammates and look forward to the last three weeks, finishing up with the Hancock Tournament. Once again, we guarantee every girl will have at least one complete game at which to show her (hopefully improved) skills. Hancock is a little bit of an oddity (the tournament, although as a 37-year veteran of that high school, the school and district also fit that description), in that it offers us the option to “bat the lineup” like some summer leagues, and we take advantage of that.

So mark your calendars for the weekend of October 3 at Affton Athletic Association (no bus: some of you could walk there faster than the bus anyway), where we will try to defend our 2013 Championship (we were rained out last year). In the meantime, enjoy the box scores and AmyJo Love’s pictures from this weekend’s games.

Grounding the Flyers: Webster 15, Lindbergh 9

After our thumping at the hands of Pattonville earlier this week, we took our show on the road to Lindbergh, where, more or less coincidentally, I am working for the time being (not the high school this time though, but Truman Middle School). I got to visit with a couple former students, the Cochran brothers, one of whom (Eric) is the new head principal at Lindbergh HS and the other (Keith) who helped shepherd me through last year's maternity leave sub gig.

We've kind of had our way with Lindbergh the past few seasons, and 2015 was no exception. Our lefty top-of-the-order twosome, Olivia and Alina, set the table and by the time the Flyers had recorded six outs they trailed 8-0. The scoring kind of bounced back and forth after that, although a 5-run 6th inning put the finishing touches on what turned out to be a 15-9 win. Give Lindbergh credit, though; they didn't fold their tent and kept battling to force a full 7 innings. Nevertheless, we were able to give every player at least one AB in preparation for tomorrow's Parkway Central Tournament. 

(Confessional disclaimer: I'm actually writing this the evening after the PC Tournament. Now that I'm temporarily working full time my [patient] wife thinks I should spend a little time with her on a Friday evening. It was nice to see our former player Claudia LeSage on her first night as a hostess at Milagro.)

The key element to this game was the energy the team brought to Flyer Field and served as a definite step forward in terms of team chemistry and commitment.