The Kentwood fastpitch team left little doubt who the top team in the South Puget Sound League North Division is this past week with a two game sweep of Auburn Riverside.
The Conquerors (9-0 league, 10-2 overall) solidified their hold on first place with a 4-3 win this past Monday and a 4-1 victory the following day, beating Raven ace Amanda Fitzsimmons in both games.
“She’s a great pitcher,” Kentwood coach Jason Wisor said. “For us to get both of them from her this year is huge.”
On Monday, the Conquerors fought back from a 3-1 deficit after six innings, tying the score at 3-3. Another run in the final frame was enough to lift Kentwood over the Ravens (5-3, 7-3) 4-3.
Conk senior Kayla Evans was awarded the win with a two-hit complete game with five strikeouts. Katie Adams was 1-for-3 from the dish with a homerun and Alex Lucas and Brooke Thomas added an RBI each.
Fitzsimmons was tagged with the loss despite striking out 13 Conquerors.
On Tuesday Kentwood again threw Evans against Fitzsimmons, hoping that the combination of tough pitching, stingy defense and timely hitting would again pay off for them.
“They’re a solid team,” Wisor said. “You don’t know if you can get ahead early with them. But I think it’s no surprise now that we’re a good team and somebody to deal with. If we keep getting solid pitching and solid defense behind them and punch in a few runs, we’re going to keep rolling. That’s what we’re here to do.”
After two errors and a walk by the Ravens in the first inning, Evans singled home Thomas and Liane Dehart to put the Conks up 2-0.
Dehart added an RBI in the fifth inning and Sophie Mastroianni added another in the sixth to put the game away for Kentwood.
“We’re coming out hoping to get both from every team,” Wisor said. “We’re coming out confident, erasing the last game and just going about our business. And right now all of our lineup is contributing and it’s paying off for us. Day in and day out the kids are working hard. They’re excited to be here. It’s just a good team atmosphere right now.”
Evans finished the game with three strikeouts in seven innings of work and gave up just three hits.
She was 2-for-4 from the dish with two RBIs and Ally Mittleider added a double on 1-for-3 hitting.
“We were prepared for it,” Evans said. “We were ready and knew it would be a tough game. I’m really excited. I’m ready to go out there now to state. I’m prepared and confident in every girl on this team. We’re peaking, but we’re not going to stop here. We’re
going to keep on going.”
For Auburn Riverside, Hannah Melick had an RBI double in the sixth inning.
Fitzsimmons notched 15 strikeouts in the contest giving up six hits and two earned runs. Her record on the season is 6-3.
Although the loss drops the Ravens into fourth place in the SPSL North, behind Kentwood, Kentlake and Jefferson respectively, coach Chris Leverenz remained hopeful that her young squad would rebound.
“We didn’t start off real well, two errors and two unearned runs in the beginning,” Leverenz said. “That doesn’t help. I
felt my kids did better after that, but you can’t give a team like Kentwood two runs in the first inning and think you’re going to be okay. I think Amanda threw well, she always does, and hit well. But luck wasn’t falling in our direction today, but you can’t whine about those things.”
“I wouldn’t say that this is a huge deal,” Fitzsimmons added. “It’s not that big of an obstacle because they’re on everybody’s radar now and we’re under it. I think it also shows us that we’re beatable and that we have things to work on. We need to concentrate every single second and every single play.”
After the game, Leverenz said she talked to her squad about digging deep and rekindling the fire of competition inside.
“Today we were just talking about getting the fire,” Leverenz said. “We talked about being aggressive at the plate. They have to be in charge. We talked a lot about being leaders and taking charge. We’ve also been talking all year about how this is a long process,
it’s baby steps. It’s not all at once.”
Leverenz added that the time was right for the team to start playing up to their potential now the team is swinging into the second half of the season.
“Now we’re playing everyone the second time and it’s time to move forward and getting on it,” she said. “We need to be more in charge. We’re seeing everybody a second time and that gives them an advantage, and hopefully us as well. We just need to start getting better at this point.”
“She talked about what we need to do and who we need to look at to light some fire under our little bums,” Fitzsimmons added. “We all want to win, but we’re not showing it right now.”
