Above: Getting ready to throw some “heat” Rachel Weiben delivers a high hard pitch to a Carlton batter last Thursday, May 9 in the Vikings’ home game against the Carlton Bulldogs. Weiben has been one of the stalwart pitchers for the fast pitch softball team this season and has been one of the team’s top hitters. Right: Sarah Deschampe hit for a single on this at bat against Carlton. Early on the Vikings hit well against the Carlton pitcher, but as the game went on the Carlton ace threw harder and harder and silenced the Vikings’ bats.
Carlton came to Grand Marais on a chilly May 9th to face the Cook County girls’ fast pitch softball team in a game that was close throughout.
The Vikings scored one run early off of Carlton’s sophomore ace pitcher, but couldn’t get anyone else across the plate.
Meanwhile Viking pitchers Alex Slanga and Rachel Weiben pitched well, but Carlton was able to score 5 runs off of some timely hits.
Weiben nearly hit one out of the park in the third inning. The towering shot just missed clearing the left field fence and Weiben was held to a double.
While the Vikings had runners on base early, Carlton’s pitcher kept getting better and better each inning and largely shut down the Viking hitters over the last three innings. It was the Vikings’ fifth game of the week, and the kids played well but had to be tired.
Although the Vikings lost, the girls played good defense against the 8-1 Carlton team, and with some timely hits the final score could have been different.
Girls lose to South Ridge Panthers
Despite playing well again, the Vikings came up short, losing 9-5 to the South Ridge Panthers at home on Tuesday, May 14.
This time it was especially tough because the Vikings had a nice lead for most of the game.
“Once again it was just one bad inning,” said Assistant Coach Monica Schnobrich.
The Vikings were up 4-2 until the 6th inning, “and then we started making errors,” Schnobrich said.
Gaining needed experience on the mound was Alex Slanga, who mostly threw a great game. The Vikings’ number one and two pitchers from last season are not playing this year or have elected not to pitch, so some big shoes have had to be filled.
“We thought we would be hurting for pitching, but that really hasn’t been the case,” said Schnobrich.
Early in the game the Vikings had some base running errors. “That plagued us. But these are being made by 9th graders who are just learning the game, so that’s going to happen until they can get more experience,” Schnobrich said.
Rachel Weiben and Anna Carman both had some timely hits for the Vikings, but catching and throwing errors late in the game undid some early good work.
With playoffs one week away the Vikings will attempt to play some makeup games this coming week. All in all the season has been compressed into about two weeks because of all of the late snowfall and cold temps. Still, the Vikings are playing better and better and hope to make a push in the sub-sections.
“Mostly we have good innings. It’s just that one bad inning that we have to get rid of. If we can play consistently throughout, we will be very competitive,” Schnobrich said.
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