Softball tries to cut down errors before prepares for postseason
By Jared Bell
IV Leader Sports Editor
Defense wins championships and unfortunately for the IVCC
softball team, their defense has let them down as they head into the postseason.
After an undefeated start to the season, the team’s defense
has caused them to go into a recent tailspin.
“Errors have been the main problem for our team recently,”
softball coach Cory Tomasson said. “We are averaging four errors a game and that
shouldn’t be taking place at the high school level, let alone at college. Our
players are very capable of making the plays and they showed us that at the
beginning of the year. However, once they make an error, it seems to mentally
stay with them and they continue to make the same mistakes.”
The postseason started Tuesday for the squad and the team
received a No. 4 seed in the Region. With a No. 4 seed, the team met Kishwaukee
in a first round and if they win the best two-out-of-three series, they would
advance to Joliet for this weekend’s Regional Final Four they would most likely
meet up with Black Hawk at 11 a.m. on Friday.
“There is a lot of parity in this year’s brackets. Everyone
except Black Hawk has lost to at least two other teams in the region this year,”
Tomasson said. “Therefore, I really think that the tournament is wide open at
this point. If some team comes out strong, no matter who it is, they have the
potential to win the whole thing.”
With strong play, Tomasson thinks his team can win regionals.
“I truly think that this team has the capability of winning
that regional, especially after playing (Illinois Central College) so closely
this week,” Tomasson said. “However, we need to play consistently throughout the
tournament to accomplish that goal.
Tomasson knows what his team needs to do to have a successful
postseason run.
“I really think that our success in the regionals will be
dependent on three areas,” Tomasson said. “First, we have to play solid defense.
It’s crucial that we minimize our errors. All of the teams tend to step up their
play at this point and we must match them. Second, our pitchers need to hit
spots. When our pitchers throw strikes, we win games. The last time we played
Kishwaukee, we lost 3-2 and 2-1 and Kishwaukee’s runs came off of walks and
errors. Both of our pitchers threw tremendous games last week and
we are hoping that this will carry over into this week. Third, we have to make
solid contact at the plate. Kishwaukee has one pitcher that throws slower and we
struggle with that. I think we faced the two fastest pitchers we have seen all
year against ICC, and we out hit them 13-12 over the doubleheader. If we adjust,
I think we should be fine on offense.”
One area that’s improving has been the pitching. After
allowing 28 runs in a doubleheader sweep to nationally ranked Black Hawk, the
pitching was improved in a doubleheader against Illinois Central College on
April 26. The staff was able to keep the team in the game, but the team dropped
both contests because of more fielding problems.
“ICC recently beat Kankakee College, who is currently ranked
second in the nation, two out of three games,” Tomasson said.
“Amy Abbott pitched tremendously well, giving up three hits and no walks. The
problem is that we gave up two unearned runs because of our defense and we ended
up losing 2-1. In the second game, Jessica Politsch pitched a good game and we
matched ICC’s hitting. However, four errors in the game cost us two unearned
runs and we lost 5-1. If our pitching continues like these games, we have
nothing to complain about in that area.”
Despite the troubles defensively, the team has once again
secured a second-place finish in the conference, something Tomasson is always
pleased to see.
“We are very happy to finish second in the conference,” he
said. “We should have finished with three less losses, and our team knows that.
In each of those games, we beat ourselves, due to errors. However, we won some
crucial games against good teams and were able to get into that second spot.”
The team’s offense statistically does have some players who
have had good seasons, but despite the success of those players at the plate,
the team recently has had trouble moving along runners and scoring runs against
quality teams.
“We have a couple of players that are consistently coming
through for our team,” Tomasson said. “Amanda Dougherty continues to be very
consistent against any type of hitting. Cassie Kelley is still hitting over .400
and Amanda Gargantiel is at about .360. However, we have been struggling at
moving runners around at key times and we have had some crucial base running
mistakes that have cost us runs.”