Blake Softball Team Ready to Cash in on Their Experience
By Nick Clark
Sun Newspapers
(Created 4/14/2005 9:03:10 AM)
|
When Blake School head softball coach Clara Just arrived at the school she decided to take a chance.
Now, four years later, she is reveling in it.
That spring when the Bears were going through tryouts, a pair of eighth-graders caught her eye, but the coach wasn’t sure if the two could handle the pressures of varsity softball.
Alyssa Saunders and Michael Johnson were junior high kids at the time, but Just went with her instincts and added the pair to the varsity roster.
“It was a risk to take those two eighth-graders and bring them up,” Just said. “But it has really paid off and now other teams will start to notice.”
The team took its lumps that first year, going 4-17. But with drastic improvements over the past two seasons, Just is confident that this is the year for her Bears.
“I will be really surprised if we do not succeed this year,” she said. “These girls are more ready than I could dream.”
They proved that in their first game of the spring, when the Bears avenged a pair of losses last season to Minnehaha Academy by dispatching them, 11-1, in just five innings.
It was just one in what Just believes will be many steps the Bears take this year.
“Last year we beat teams that we have not been beating previously,” Just said. “We will do a lot of that again this year, but this year, we want to win our conference, which we can do. We are right there, we have it in our hands. Now it is just really a matter of playing the games and showing that this is something that we are really meant to do.”
Saunders and Johnson, who have emerged as juniors, will lead the Bears.
Saunders’ right arm will be the real key. She has pitched a majority of Blake’s games the past three years and Just is ready to let her do the same this year.
“She is a kid who has the greatest amount of stamina in the conference,” Just said. “She is composed, she hits her spots well. She was playing like a senior when she was a sophomore.”
Johnson will guard the left side of the infield, playing third base.
“She sucks up just about everything that comes her way,” Just said. “I will be trying to hit balls into left field during practice and she will not let anything get by her.”
Other keys for Blake will be the play of Susie Lipinski and Lisa Perkins. The pair of senior captains helped get the spring going by setting a meaningful tone during captains’ practices.
“They started going through our plays and helping the younger kids out with everything,” Just said. “They got them into the mind set and got them into that focus of where we need to be to be successful.”
Myriah Rodgers, a seventh-grader who is a direct benefactor from Just’s decision to let the Saunders and Johnson play as eighth-graders, will be the team’s starter at second base.
“Alyssa and Michael set a precedent and showed that they could do it,” said Just. “We can have these younger kids on the team and it can work.”
Blake plans on making a lot of things work this spring and the team is making plans to be playing into June.
“Their expectations are high and, of course, mine are,” Just said. “But they have set that standard.”
Reprinted with permission Sun Newspapers
|
|
