Lakewood Softball Learning on the Fly

When most area high school coaches discuss the days and weeks of interminable and that has poured down on Lakewood and all across Northeast Ohio, they first talk about how few games they have been able to schedule between all of the rainouts. Then they talk about how sad they are for their seniors, their last opportunities to play high school sports washed away under gray skies.

Not softball coach Tedd Bruening.

Bruening has only one senior on his team, after all, and only three players with any varsity experience prior to this season. The biggest consequence of the rain – for him and for the Rangers – was their total lack of any outdoor practices on their own field. They have not had one. The only times they have been on the dirt and grass of their home field at Harding Middle School has been for games – including their latest, an 11-0 loss Friday afternoon to Medina.

Would even two or three practices outdoors have helped the Rangers? Of course, Bruening said, because “especially with the younger girls, it’s hard to simulate some situations in the gym. You can kind of go through it, but being out here and seeing it in the environment it’s going to happen in helps.”

Make no mistake, the Rangers (2-8, 0-4) are moving forward. With the weather at last starting to dry up at least a little – they played under blue skies and a smattering of wispy clouds Friday – they're on the field more now than at any point during the previous two months. And they are improving.  They're not a bad team, just a team with precious little experience.

They allowed the Bees (5-7, 3-2) to score only single runs in three of the first four innings. Two weeks ago, the Bees had rolled to a 17-0 win over the Rangers. But then two more runs scored in the fifth, and six more in the sixth, the Bees stringing together five straight hits to open the inning.

Against Medina starter Karli Green, the Rangers collected just two hits – one in the first by catcher Bridgette Garcia, the other in the fifth by pitcher Courtney Shaw – and one walk.

“A lot of us are young and don’t have the mindset to want to go up there and hit the ball,” said Garcia, one of three returning varsity players along with outfielders Dani Lesko and Gina Mack. “We go up there hoping we get a fastball right down the middle to swing at.”

When the Rangers were unable to score two runs in the sixth, the game was over, called on account of the 10-run mercy rule. The Rangers would have liked to have kept playing. That seventh inning would have been one more inning of experience, one more inning to learn and play and do.

“That’s what we need,” Bruening said. “Just to play every day to get the girls the experience at this level.”

MEDINA 11

LAKEWOOD 0

at Harding Middle School

MHS   1 1 0   1 2 6   --   11 17 0

LHS    0 0 0   0 0 0   --   0    2   1

WP: Karli Green, 6IP, 2H, 0R, 0ER, 1BB, 9K. LP: Courtney Shaw, 6IP, 17H, 11R, 10ER, 2BB, 0K. 2B:  Abby Knechtel (MHS), Green (MHS). 3B: Vanessa Scoarste (MHS), Green 2 (MHS).  SB: Scoarste 4 (MHS), Lauren Peak (MHS), Bridgette Garcia (LHS).