Weatherly blanks Jim Thorpe
Weatherly head coach Margaret Brown might not be used to the kind of attention that her team is receiving as of late, but it is definitely the type of recognition that she and her senior-laden group of softball athletes could get used to.
After their 3-0 shutout win over Jim Thorpe on Tuesday, the Lady Wreckers are undefeated through their first four games of the 2015 season and, according to Brown, the team deserves to be where they're at."It feels wonderful to be where we are at this point," Brown said. "Because this is a great group of kids. We have seven seniors on the team and they're just a great group of kids. They work hard, they know each other well and they deserve this."Brown's crew nabbed a run in the bottom of the second and then tacked on two more insurance runs in the fourth to provide them with enough to defeat the Lady Olympians and move to 4-0 on the young season."It feels amazing to be out to this great start," winning pitcher and senior Jess Polchin said. "This was one of the tougher teams that we've faced so far. We're just aiming to get back to the playoffs, which is our goal for this season."Polchin fanned six batters and only gave up two hits in the mound win and consistently kept Jim Thorpe batters guessing with her speed switches and finding her spots."Basically, I just use my speed to keep batters off balance and then tried to mix in some off-speed pitches, as well," Polchin said. "Then I'll vary it from inside to outside and it seemed to work today."In the second, the Wreckers got things started as Jenna Bartel singled to begin the frame. Teammate Jess Maiello followed with a single to advance Bartel, who eventually scored when Shannon Frye walked.In the fourth, Morgan Gower reached on an error and scored when the next batter, Sam Knepper, drilled an RBI triple. Cat Strizak rode the momentum by driving in Knepper on a RBI single for the game's final run."I thought we did a great job of keeping our composure, because we didn't seem to get rattled about things," Brown said. "We're trying to get our confidence levels up and a win like this can do that. I believe our performance has improved every game and to play our best game against the best team we have faced. As long as that keeps happening, I'm happy."For the Olympians, Marzen and Miranda had singles.Despite the lack of offense, Jim Thorpe head coach Bernice Bott found plenty to take away from the performance."We're struggling with our bats so far this year," Bott said. "Our defense was better today and we didn't have as many errors that we've had in other games this year. We're happy with that part of our game, but we just need to get our bats going. We're struggling and trying to gel."At 0-4, the Lady Olympians are similarly improving with each passing game, and Bott hopes that trend continues."We haven't found our exact lineup yet, so we're hoping to do that soon," she said. "We're just not watching the ball and not keeping our heads down on the pitches."Jim Thorpe 000 000 0 - 0 3 3Weatherly 010 200 x - 3 5 3Holloway and Marzen; Polchin and Maiello. WP - Polchin, LP - Holloway.