chequam

Two years ago, the name was Park Falls and they beat us in the sectional final and went on to state. Last year they had essentially the same team and we beat them on the way to state. So this was kind of the tie breaker. It was the third consecutive time that we have met in the sectionals. Congrats to the Screamin' Eagles on another good year.

It has been tradition to do a "Walk Away" picture when the seniors play their last game on the Pirate Field. This year we have Six seniors that will walk away. The OFFICIAL transcript reads..... These seniors have NEVER lost a game at home!! When they were frosh the only loss was in the state tournament. When they were sophs, the only loss was to Park Falls in the Sectional Finals. When they were Juniors they did NOT lose. So far, as seniors, they have NOT lost. Wow...what a four years! THANKS Fastpitch Class of 2010. You have set the bar high. I don't know how many more games we will get to watch you guys...But we get to practice tonight.. Practice like a Champion. And then Friday we will see how good we really are.....

In 2006, we lost the very first game to Pine City. We then won the next 24 in a row culminating in a state championship. The following year we lost 4 very good starters but still won the first 23 in a row. That makes a 47 game win streak. Currently the 2010 team has a 47 game winning streak, too. Over the last four years this class has been part of a 92-3 run. During this time they have won the conference all four times. They have won the region all four times. They have made it to the sectional final all four times. They have also picked up a state championship last year. I also did some comparing to the same time last year. Our number of hits is up 38%. Our strikeouts are down 31%. Our base on balls is up 26% and our average for batting is up 100 points.We will soon see if they can add to these numbers. The thing about softball is the game, itself, doesn't care what you have done in the past. It only matters what you do for the one night. And for this ONE night, we allowed ourselves to PRACTICE ONE MORE DAY! thats all.

Twas the night before sectionals and all through the house not a creature was stirring except for Gabbie...she is always doing something. The field was ready...the lines were painted and it was SECTIONAL time for the first time on Grantsburg soil. Since it was a sectional game, we needed to flip a coin. We practiced for hours but then remembered that the team coming the farthest gets to make the call. We were now the visitor on the score board.

In the top of the first Grantsburg quickly put two hits together. Kylie got the first hit and Mich followed with a line drive to right. With two outs, the pitcher bobbled a grounder allowing two Pirates to score. EC and Romo followed with two more singles and the score was 3-0 after the top of the first. The bottom of the inning started with Bonney popping to Sarah. Meyer then ripped a double to left center placing a runner in scoring position. Taking no slack, Mich struck her out. After the only walk of the night Withey popped to Tiff on a nice catch behind first.... I have seen her practice that catch...every game.

The Pirates continued to apply pressure from the plate. Sarah walked to start the inning. Tiff tripled down the right field line but was literally stoned at third by their pitcher as she ball faked Kylie. The next pitch was hit over the center fielder's head by Mich scoring Kylie. And then Annie walks to the plate and loses the ball somewhere up Nort'. What a blast!

At this point of the game Mich is starting to take control. The Eagles are hitting the ball but not very hard. The Pirates come to bat in the third. Romo is looking for her second hit of the night but is denied by a great catch from Slack, the left fielder. Nice Pic Scott. As you can see, Deb went with her VB instincts. She is about to block the SMASH. Aren't your thumbs suppose to be parallel??

But Grantsburg was not through. On a 3-0 pitch, Cody ripped one to center. Sarah took one off the elbow placing runners at first and second. Kylie is pretty good...has anyone noticed? With runners at second and third....and the infield up....Kylie laced one to right center scoring both runners.

It is now the fifth inning. Nicole hits for Tiff and lines one to center. Sam reaches on a fielder's choice but Tiff is erased. After Sam steals second Jessica comes to the plate and blisters one to center scoring Sam. The score stands 10-0.

For the game the Eagles ended up with 0 runs on 1 hit and 1 walk. Grantsburg again had ZERO errors. Grantsburg had a good night. They scored 10 runs on 12 hits and 1 walk. The Eagles had only 1 error, costly as it was. For Grantsburg Kylie and Mich had multiple hit nights. The rest of the hits were by Tiff, Nicole, Annie, HD, Otto, Romo, Cody and Jessica. Jessica had the line shot in the 5th scoring the 10th run which allowed us to be done in 5 innings. Grantsburg had only 1 strikeout for the entire game and kept putting the ball into play. Mich just pitched her 3rd tourney game in a row without allowing a run. What control! In the 5 innings, she struck out 4 Eagles. Tiff had some nice plays at second base as did Sarah at third. It is now time to move on.

We a little chat with the team. Even though we are defending state champions, we are NOT entitled to anything. Fastpitch is a game that doesn't really care about what happened last year. It only cares about the current game...the current day. Throw your best, catch your best, hit your best, make good decisions, cheer for each other.... and whoever does it best is the winner for that ONE day. It is also this competition and intensity that makes it soo much fun. We are good. Arcadia is good. This should be a good game. This team has many players capable of stepping it up...so does Arcadia.... It will be fun. I promise this team will play hard...and then we will see. Following is some stats from EARLy in the season. Two years ago played at Arcadia. In our potential course for this year we anticipated Prescott to return... Arcadia smoked 'em by 12 then 10 runned Elksomething which played SCC verrrrrrry close twice. Anyway here is some of the players. They are VERY good. Game at 4:00 In Hammond.

HITTING		G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	HBP	SAC	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG
14	J. Baumgartner	8	26	6	10	4	0	1	12	3	0	2	4	.385	.448	.654
20	J. Baumgartner	13	19	8	7	2	0	1	7	0	0	1	1	.368	.368	.632
11	L. Bergum	4	9	5	5	2	1	0	6	4	0	0	1	.556	.692	1.000
1	N. Flury	5	14	4	8	2	0	1	7	1	0	0	2	.571	.600	.929
2	K. Pronchinske	10	36	10	19	7	0	1	15	1	1	0	1	.528	.553	.806
6	S. Pronchinske	6	14	7	7	1	1	3	8	3	1	1	1	.500	.611	1.000
16	J. Pronchinske	9	28	15	16	5	0	0	8	4	1	1	12	.571	.636	.750
7	J. Schmidtknecht	2	2	0	2	0	0	0	3	0	0	0	0	1.000	1.000	1.000
9	T. Sobotta	2	7	1	4	1	0	1	3	0	0	0	0	.571	.571	1.000
5	T. Suchla	8	25	14	15	3	1	2	13	5	1	0	9	.600	.677	1.000
4	M. Tamke	6	19	8	7	2	1	0	6	1	1	0	3	.368	.429	.579
TOTALS			199	78	100	29	4	10	88	22	5	5	34	.503	.562	.839

PITCHING		W	L	S	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	WHIP	ERA
20	J. Baumgartner	11	2	0	78.0	83	43	31	19	44	2	1.31	2.78
TOTALS					78.0	83	43	31	19	44	2	1.31	2.78

TWIS: Last Friday was kind of a relaxing practice. Don brought in his puppies and that kind of ended practice right there. The runt of the litter picked out Tiffany. They were inseparable. Mollie came and threw a round of hitting. Sooner or later we may see a Lefty. Then Elise gave us all an anatomy lesson. They hauled in more bleachers..... The Grantsburg young girls games were postponed so they could attend. I know teams came from Webster and from Spooner... GO ABBIE and CARLIE. Thanks Dan Thill for coming in Monday and throwing some rise balls. Monday was Finchy's birthday...a good time and ice cream was had by all. There was a mini pep session for all athletes on Monday...it started early...and was over quickly. I got two quick texts...One said.... come to the pep session. The next one said RUN! I think people forgot to stand for the school song. Did you see that 2 Wisconsin teams were booted from the tournament because they played on Too many dates...wow.. Tuesday was a wash. We watched the Laconia game and did some throwing drills in the HS gym. The MS gym is being painted. We forgot to dam the side walk. During one of the recent rains, we discovered that the middle school parking lots drains right down the sidewalk, through the backstop and then heads to right field. We found fossils. Good to see such a nice crowd...especially graduated players. Congrats to the baseball team for playing so well and making it to the sectionals. Thanks to Kylie's relatives and the Bosaks for refreshments. Hey Mac.... I had to get rid of my t-shirt when the soccer moms walked by!!? Kylie is on youtube...go search. Tonight's practice will be odd. Cody and Tiff have to lifeguard. Not sure quite how this will work...but small practices after 4:00 then at 7:00 a group thing. Is there a Perkings on the way? Do you think we should retake the walkaway pic so that they are actually walking?? Last night the web page was not working... I sent an email to Jesse Byers. At 11:30 he FIXED it.....Thanks Jesse.