Thirteen Hollister girls will head to the 14-and under girls
fastpitch ‘A’ NSA Western World Series this Sunday for the opening
ceremonies which take place at 6:45 p.m.
Thirteen Hollister girls will head to the 14-and under girls fastpitch ‘A’ NSA Western World Series this Sunday for the opening ceremonies which take place at 6:45 p.m. By then, the Hollister Heat 14 A’s will know who their first round opponent is. The draw for the 34-team tournament is on Saturday, while tourney play begins on Monday.
This is the first year of ‘A’ travel softball in the town of Hollister. Head coach Steve Grimsley, who headed the Hollister High freshmen team last year and has experienced coaching ‘B’ travel teams, stated there is a difference in level of competition.
“The pitching you face is more solid,” said Grimsley. “And, as we have learned, one or two mistakes can cost you the game.”
“There are no easy games,” said assistant coach Tim Patton. “In ‘B’ ball we’d have two tough ones and a couple of easy ones. If this team played ‘B’ ball this year, we’d probably be undefeated.”
The Heat 14 A’s are at about .500 for the season after going 0-2 at the recent state tournament.
“We’ve had a lot of one or two-run losses,” said Grimsley. “That’s where those mistakes we have made have come into play.”
“We have to play the whole game and not have one bad inning,” added first baseman Ashley Patton. “If we do that, we can do well in this tournament.”
Despite any mistakes on defense, Grimsley feels the strength of the club is, in fact, its defense. That goes, especially in regards to his pitching staff, which consists of Jordan Lee, Sam Filice and Denise Lujan.
“The best thing about our pitchers is that they can all field their position well,” said Grimsley.
Filice and Lee, an incoming freshman, handle most of the duties. Lujan was a recent add-on for a player who withdrew from the club. Drew Huston has been working with the pitching corps.
“Sam throws the ball harder, but Jordan has more movement on her pitches,” said Huston. “The key is to hit their spots. We don’t have the pitchers who can throw it by the hitters. So, if they don’t hit their spots, the other team will just drive the ball on them.”
Besides Patton, the rest of the infield stacks up with Felicia Freitas at second, Ari Romero at short and Krisaundra Haggard at third. Jamie Huston, daughter of Drew Huston, is behind the plate with Patton as the backup.
Grimsley mixes up his outfielders with consists of Bailey Brown, Brittany Stagg, Amanda Boyd, Kassie Kearns and Courtney Macfarlane.
“They all can go get the ball in the outfield,” said Grimsley. “They all have good speed.”
Grimsley cites Boyd, who ran on the Hollister High varsity track team as a freshman last spring, as the fastest runner on the team. Freitas isn’t far behind.
The best hitters are Haggard, who leads the team with two homers, Huston, Kearns and Patton. Boyd is the only other player to homer, though almost all of the games are played in no-fence parks.
All of the girls are 14 year-olds with the exception of Lee, Lujan and Haggard, who are 13.
“This has been a good experience for me, playing ‘A’ ball this summer,” said Lee. “We’ll be all right in the tournament. We can’t get down on ourselves if we get down two or three runs. We tend to sag as a team when that happens.”
The tournament runs though July 27.
