On April 13, 2023, the Leesville Road Prides softball team fought hard in their home game against Cardinal Gibbons Crusaders. The game went into extra innings, resulting in a tie game of 8-8. Leesville lost it when Gibbons earned another run, causing the score to be 9-8.
Leesville’s team lacked two starting players that game and left the Pride without a catcher. Elizabeth Breher, junior, stepped into catching, a position she had never played before.
“I was really nervous at first cause I never realized how much there is to think about behind the plate. After the first inning, I was feeling more comfortable until we got into extra innings. The extra innings caused a lot of stress just because I knew I had to keep the ball in front and not let anything pass me, advancing runners. Blocking and keeping the ball in front is a lot harder than it looks, it can be challenging with the movement pitches, but it’s very fun to do and it was a good experience even though I’ve never done it before,” said Breher.
During practices, the Pride worked on faster pitching because in previous games, they faced slower pitching, so the team worked on adjusting to a new pitching speed. The players also worked on fielding routine balls and making sure plays were perfect.
After a rain cancellation, the next week, the Pride played away at Gibbons. The Pride was determined to beat the Crusaders after the previous loss.
Gibbons had Leesville with a score of 3-0 until the third inning when Leesville put up 5 runs. No runs were scored for either team in the fourth inning. In the fifth inning, Leesville put up another 5 runs, and Gibbons 1. In the sixth and seventh inning, Gibbons put up a total of 5 runs and Leesville 0.
Leesville was able to hold Gibbons by one run, resulting in the final score of 10-9. This was an important win for Leesville as Gibbons had been a tough competitor for a couple of years.
“Specifically, working on faster pitching was very beneficial. After we saw the pitcher the first time we were able to adjust in practice with our days in between games to hit faster pitching. This allowed us to score more runs than the first game we played and we were able to pull off the win against Gibbons,” said Katelyn Gill, a junior.
Carlee Roberts, a senior, led the game with a total of 2 stolen bases. Roberts leads the Pride softball team with the most stolen bases.
“The Gibbons games were very good games to play in. They were competitive and I believe they were evenly matched, and it shows with the scores. Anyone that knows me, knows that I’m not fast at all and have a bad knee, so having the most stolen bases is funny. It’s mostly about getting on base regularly and having the catcher off guard,” said Roberts.
Kayla Wozniak, junior, was the starting pitcher for Leesville, and Kara Horner, sophomore, was the starting catcher.
“It sucked missing the first game especially how important it was for us but the second game was great. It was a fun, competitive, back-and-forth game which kept us on our toes. It was a huge win for our team. After losing the first game by only one run and going into overtime, everyone was eager to beat Gibbons the second time around and the energy was great,” said Horner.
Oberdorf earned pride player of the game for her great fielding and hitting throughout the game. After every win, one player gets awarded the pride chain and it is given to the player who got out of their comfort zone.
“It was nice getting pride player for an important game. The pride chain is a thing our coach hands out after most games and gives to the player he thought did good and got out of their comfort zone,” said Oberdorf.
The spruce just finished the week off with a home game against Sanderson, resulting in a score of 2-1.