Pawling Softball All-Star Team is the first to play in post-season tournament
By John M. Benson
July 2, 2007
Eleven Pawling girls are the pioneers of Pawling Al-Star Softball, as they are the first all-star team to represent Pawling Little League in the postseason tournament:
Haley Clark
Gabrielle Stenton
Nicollette Algiere
Lily Sanchez
Morgan Meaney
Michelle Piazza
Kimberly Sullivan
Ashley Loeven
Isabella Grillo
Emma Dickinson
Katie Dickinson
The coaches were Gary Prinz, Dave Stenton, Jim Piazza and Mike Shustak. Shustak is the president of Pawling Little League.
The coaches all said that they were extremely proud of the girls and the way they played, the way the girls played with great heart and never lost their enthusiasm despite playing against more experienced teams from Wappingers and Beekman.
The young ladies played very good softball, laying the groundwork for the teams that will follow. Their fielding and their hitting were actually quite good, showing the potential for future success in this event. If the girls want to become outstanding as softball players as they move up in the age brackets, and eventually play with the high school varsity, they will want to take advantage of any opportunities to improve their skills and their understanding of the game.
As it was their first year in the tournament, they were understandably over-matched by the more experienced team from Beekman in the 22-1 loss in the game on July 2.
However, even in just the four innings played in that game, the girls learned a great deal and showed marked improvement in that one game by the third inning. In the first two innings, Beekman had scored 19 runs by taking advantage of the Pawling girls’ inexperience. They were running out walks into doubles when the Pawling girls didn’t get the ball back to the eight-foot circle on the pitcher’s mound, and they were taunting the Pawling girls into a run-down between third and home and beating the throw to the plate.
But by the third inning, the Pawling girls had learned their lessons, and made several outstanding plays for outs with throws from the outfield to cut down runners at third base, and throws home from the infield to cut down runners trying to score. Pawling allowed just three runs in that inning, a marked improvement over the first two innings, and a strong indication that the Pawling girls can be competitive once they have played more games in All-Star competition.
They may also find that the game is more friendly to them when they have played more games and won more respect. In the first inning, the Beekman pitcher was called for an illegal pitch, but instead of imposing a penalty, the umpires stopped the game and gave the pitcher a clinic on how to pitch legally. When the pitcher was called again for an infraction just a few pitches later, the umpires stopped the game again and held another free clinic.
In contrast, when a Pawling runner stepped off of second base in the top of the fourth inning, she was summarily dispatched from the bases with nothing more than a perfunctory “The runner at second base is out!” from the umpire. When pressed for an explanation, he grumbled that the runner had left the base while the ball was in the eight-foot circle around the pitcher’s mound. In the absence of a free clinic, a second Pawling runner was called for the same infraction moments later, and banished from the field in the same rude and dismissive manner by the umpire. Those amounted to two of the three outs in Pawling’s final opportunity to play, the top of the fourth inning, and so they were the last calls in the Pawling season.
But these pioneers have marked the path to the All-Star Tournament for future Pawling girls, and these girls have gained valuable experience that will benefit them greatly in their own careers in softball. |
