East opens season with 11-0 victory
Originally published February 15, 2011 at 11:24 p.m., updated February 15, 2011 at 11:35 p.m.
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CommentAll day long, it's baserunning. That's what Titans coach Jody Morgan preaches to her team.
Be aggressive. Slide hard. Attack.
"All we work on is baserunning," she said. "Every day, beginning of practice, we work on our sliding, our starts. We're going to be an aggressive team because we have the speed to be."
Tuesday night, they looked like seasoned veterans. They took bases, stole them and took hard slides when they needed to.
It's surprising to learn that Victoria East is playing numerous underclassmen. They have just three seniors, and two other returning players from last season.
"We're very very young, but we've worked on the mental game all off season," Morgan said.
It was the difference in a big third inning in the Titans to open the season against a St. Joseph team that is learning on the job as much as the Titans are.
"That's what I tell the girls, it's not the way we start, it's how we finish," said Lady Flyers co-coach Craig Lauger. "We'd love to have a bunch of kids who play softball year round, but we don't.
"We're just going to keep working hard on our fundamentals. We have them for two hours a day and we just have to get more done in our two hours than other teams."
Victoria East opened the season in rousing fashion, taking advantage of a strong pitching performance from freshman Alisha Quinterro and six Lady Flyer errors in the third inning in a crushing 11-0 victory in five innings to open the season Tuesday night.
It's the Lady Flyers second loss as both they and East prepare for the start of the VISD softball tournament, which starts Thursday.
The Titans had just three hits in the third inning, but were helped by a total of six St. Joseph errors, many forced by East's aggressive base running.
But others was just careless fielding, said Lady Flyer co-coach Rudy Diaz.
"I think they're thinking too much about what they are going to do with the play," he said. "They need to get back to basics."
The key for the Lady Flyer, though, will be waking up the bats. St. Joseph had just two hits over five innings, and struggled to string anything together.
"We're lunging at a lot of pitches," Diaz said. "We're going to go back to basics in the batting cage tomorrow."
Part of that can be attributed to the talent of the freshman Quinterro, who allowed only one walk and had seven strike outs for the Titans.
Good things lay ahead for the pitcher, her coaches said.
"She's got great power from her legs, and her placement has gotten more consistent," said Titans pitching coach Courtney Rigamonti. "She's got a good variety that she's learning to control."
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