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Sports

Girls Fastpitch First Look: New and Veteran Players Make up Dynamic Squad

The Enumclaw fastpitch team shakes off a loss to rival White River last week, looking ahead to Tuesday's match-up against Yelm High School.

The Enumclaw fastpitch squad is reloading and ready to take on all corners. 

In 2010, Enumclaw was anchored by veteran ace pitcher Austin Rogers who led the Hornets  to an appearance in the 2010 State 3A fastpitch tournament.  With Rogers graduated, Enumclaw coach Mike Eckhart now looks to a trio of candidates to fill her void.

"Madelline Pettelin, Josie Wicks and Kenicia McClellan are the three primary front runners for us in the pitching circle," Eckhart said. "Also, having Austin as our assistant pitching coach this year is going to help us a lot."

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On the other half of the battery for the Hornets, Eckhart has a stabilizing force at the catcher position thanks to the return of junior Courtney Cox.  Cox, a returning starter from last year took a strong leadership role during the offseason in getting on the same page with the new pitchers. Thus, Eckhart was very pleased.

"Courtney took the time to find out where each of these pitchers were working out with their private pitching coaches and caught for them for all offseason," Eckhart said.

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The Enumclaw infield will be a wide open competition, according to Eckhart. The Hornets return a strong super-fielding second basemen Anna Litvinenko but the left side of the infield is going to be a battle.

"We have two freshmen battling it out at short stop and third base," Eckhart said.

The outfield will be anchored by veteran returners Katina Ferguson and Kayla Kranz which should aide in the Hornets' quest to improve their defensive fielding struggles from 2010.

"We had 54 errors last year that ended up letting in 38 unearned runs," Eckhart said. "Defense will be important for us to improve on this season."

The SPSL 3A softball league has gone through a bit of an evolution with several schools exiting to the 2A level, but Eckhart knows his players will be ready for the challenge ahead.

"The rest of the league brings back their pitching," Eckhart said. "But we have tough kids that can hit with anybody so we will be ready for the challenge."

The Hornets opened their season against neighborhood rival White River on Wednesday falling 15-8. The turning point in the contest was an 11-run sixth inning by White River to come from behind and beat Enumclaw. Joslin Pierotti led Enumclaw with a two for three day batting but it was not enough to hold off White River's offense.

The Enumclaw Hornets have a home matchup on the schedule for Tuesday, March 22 against Yelm at Enumclaw High School. Start time is at 4 p.m.



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