High School Softball: Iola Fillies
Tuesdays home split versus Anderson County made it clear to Iola softball head coach Chris Weide that his team needs more reps.
The Fillies waited 27 days to get back on the field in between their season opener at Chanute and Tuesday night. A team thats already loaded with underclassmen (18 of the 25 players are either sophomores or freshmen) needs more than anything to get back on the field and start to figure out the makeup of their team.
Now I guess it kind of feels like a preseason game, Weide said of the season opener at Chanute, It just happened so long ago and you could tell we were a little rusty but Anderson County hadnt played a ton either so they were in the same boat. Weve dealt with the same weather.
The Fillies won game one 7-4 before falling in game two 23-8. With the split, they move to 1-2 overall and 1-1 in Pioneer league play.
At the start of game one, things seemed to be all systems go. The Fillies tacked on three runs in the bottom of the first and scored two more in the second and third innings to take a 5-1 lead.
Anderson County started to chip away and scored two in the top of the fourth and another run in the top of the fifth to get within a run with just a couple of innings left to play. The Fillies continued to answer back though, scoring two runs in the bottom of the fifth and holding Anderson County scoreless in the final two innings for the win.
Coming in, we didnt know what to expect, Weide said. Both of our pitchers had never pitched varsity before and we had a lot of girls in new positions. But we came out hot and hit the ball well and played good defense for the first couple of innings before we let them crawl back in with some errors.
Sophomore Sadrie Overall got the start and the win going the full seven innings allowing four runs (two earned) on six hits and four walks with two strikeouts.
Senior Chloe Gardner led the way offensively with three hits and an RBI followed by junior Maci Martin who had two hits and two RBIs.
The Fillies got off to a similar start in game two but couldnt keep the momentum.
Anderson County took a 2-0 lead right out of the gate but the hot Iola bats seemed to carry through as the Fillies put up four runs in the bottom of the first and then another three in the bottom of the second to take a 7-3 lead.
The Fillies were up by five through the top of the third but then things began to fall apart. In the fifth inning Anderson County scored six to push their lead to 14-7 and then in the top of the seventh after the Fillies got a run in the previous inning, the Bulldogs scored nine runs, putting an exclamation point on what was a very frustrating game for Iola.
Freshman starter Kailey Schinstock did struggle but only six of her 23 runs that she gave up were earned. The 12 hits in the game were only two behind Anderson Countys pitcher and her eight strikeouts were tied for the most for any pitcher in either game.
Iola ended up committing 12 errors in game two.
After the game, we talked to the girls about how its all up here, Wei-de said pointing to his head. If you make an error youve got to move on to the next play. If you have a poor swing or a poor at-bat youve just got to get over it and get to the next thing. It snowballed on us and it got in our heads a little bit. But I think with more reps well be fine.
Despite the struggles, sophomore Nissa Fountain managed to have a nice three-hit, one-RBI game at the plate and junior Paige Burrough ended up with two hits and an RBI.
