Outfield defense saves Prairie Stars during final preseason tourney

October 08, 2008
Robert Jackson
Sports Writer

Neither Ashley Schafer nor Nicole McAfee showed any signs of preseason rust last Sunday when they rifled the ball home from the outfield. 
The respective outfield assists preserved a tie in each game that then allowed the Prairie Stars a chance to win in the next inning.  The team managed one win against the Meramec Community College Magic but tied the Rend Lake Community College Warriors in the nightcap.

Pitchers Brianne Moeller, Laura Wright, and Alex Newbern gave up a combined 10 runs in the two games.

“I think if you looked at all three of them you could tell we hadn’t played in two weeks,” Fisher said.  “It’s hard to stay sharp.”

In the top of the seventh inning the Magic and Prairie Stars were tied at 3-3.  After one Magic player reached on an error, she was moved over to second base on a sacrifice bunt.  The Magic’s Jessica Tranter then thumped a ball up the middle for a single.

Celeste Knierim, who was filling in for the regular Head Coach, Linda McQueen, waved her runner on second base home.  Schafer scooped the ball from the centerfield grass and launched the ball towards home where catcher Emmarie Snyder received the ball to tag the runner out.

“I knew Bri had missed on the pitch so I was just like I got to get this girl out and when I did I saw that it also turned her game around,” Schafer said.

Fisher saw the defensive play sparking the team’s three-run flurry in the top of the eighth inning, an amount that proved too great for the Magic as they eventually fizzled in their half of the eighth after scoring an early run to lose the game 6-4.

More importantly for the development of the Prairie Stars was the fact that all three runs came from contributions from the fourth, fifth, and sixth hitters in the lineup.  Last year, Jessica Wolff collected 22 RBIs from the third spot while the regular four and five hitters combined for 19.

“We’re improving at the plate top-to-bottom,” Fisher said.  “We need to score runs regardless of where we are in the lineup.”

In the second game the Prairie Stars built an early 2-0 lead in the first inning after a pair of RBIs by Wolff and Kristin Kruger.   Moeller added to that lead in the second inning by launching a pitch about 215’ in the right field power alley for a home run.

“That was a huge momentum swing early,” Rend Lake Head Coach Dave Ellingsworth said.  “She just hit the poopy out of that thing…  We weren’t going to give her anything to hit after that.”

Rend Lake would chip into the lead, making it a 5-3 game by the third inning before finally tying it 5-5 in the fifth inning. 

The comeback marked the second one in three games for Rend Lake.  The game before against Jefferson College the Warriors scored 10 runs in the fifth inning to eventually tie the game 11-11 before the one hour and 45 minute time limit expired.

The two teams would trade runs, UIS scoring in the fifth inning after Wolff’s second RBI and then the Warriors scoring at the top of the sixth inning.
In the seventh inning McAfee preserved the 6-6 tie by hurling a high-arcing toss from deep left field to home, where Snyder once again received the ball in time to tag the runner on her back as she attempted to slide head first between Snyder’s legs.

The Prairie Stars squandered their chance to win the game after Wolff was tagged out at first after dashing too far away from first on an infield blooper that was caught by Rend Lake’s shortstop. 

In a game with more than 13 base hits for each side, base running errors caused by aggression are going to happen, Fisher explained.

Last Sunday’s results make the Prairie Stars 6-0-1 for the preseason.  Fisher feels heading into the Spring the team’s pitching and defense will be solid, while finding offensive production will be the task for the regular season preparations.

“We got to get some runs for the solid pitching we have here,” Fisher said.