Advosports

A few tweaks under the hood was all it took to get the Lady Flyers humming along again.

After opening TAPPS District 2-5A play with a win on Tuesday night, St. Joseph (7-6) opened its tournament with an impressive string of two games: 11 innings total, one hit allowed, 19 combined runs scored.

"Much better defense," said Lady Flyers co-coach Craig Lauger. "It's a lot easier to play defense when you're scoring some runs. We're hitting the ball really well. It's kind of a fun time when everybody can come up with a hit."

St. Joseph got a five-inning no hitter from Holly Parenica in a 10-0 win over Yorktown, and a one-hitter in a six-inning game over Boling. The wins are the Lady Flyers second and third straight.

The Lady Flyers are starting to click at the right time, as they prepare for a big game against district opponent San Antonio Antonian on Monday. Parenica said the turning point for the team was the VISD tournament.

"That's when we started to find the tempo we needed to play at and what we needed to do before the game," she said. "That really helped us come together as a team."

But there are differences from last year to this year.

Paige Terrell, Briana Shimek and Spenser Strnadel have helped to give a lift to the lineup offensively, as well as defensively since joining the team after the end of the basketball season. But all three have moved positions to open this season.

Last year, Shimek spent much of the season behind the plate and Strnadel at third.

Strnadel has moved to second base and Shimek has taken over first base, while Kate Tucker, who had been at second base to open the year and center field last year, moved to shortstop.

Shortstop Fabiola Chinea moved from short to third base. Terrell, who played a number of positions last year, is in center field.

A big part of the shift? Finding a way to replace second baseman Tori Escamilla, who graduated after last season.

"We had a hole at second because we lost Tori," Lauger said. "Fabi was handling (third) really well while Spenser was in basketball, and we wanted to get a look at Spenser at second. She's handled that position really well."

The musical chairs seems to have worked. The Lady Flyers initial struggles in the field seem like a thing of the past given the slick fielding and throwing defense on the field Thursday afternoon.

The amount of errors are down, and it's taken pressure off everyone.

"I was just keeping the ball down," Parenica said. "My speed was pretty good, my changeup was my best pitch. I think I threw a lot of batters off with that."

The focus is no the next games. St. Joseph has Friday off while Pools C and D play games. They play again at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Saturday.

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