CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR FOR SOFTBALL TEAM

Lady Seahawks are in last place in one of the toughest conferences in Florida.

By Jonathan Vega
Contributing Writer

Coach Brian Staubly was pulling out his hair watching his team's performance on March 26 against a formidable Brevard softball team. In the first of the two games the major theme was errors and “major” is an understatement.

The Seahawks committed nine errors en route to a 10-2 blowout which cut the game an inning short. The game was close until the third inning when the Seahawks committed two errors to begin the inning, putting runners on second and third with nobody out when it could've been two outs with no one on base. The next batter doubled in the two runs and the rout was on.

Starting pitcher, Jillian Burdick, went five innings allowing nine runs but only four of which were earned. She did this sporting her brother's high school and college number, 19. He is currently serving his second tour in Iraq and Burdick said, “As soon as I got a chance to change my number I grabbed number 19 for him.” She also stressed the importance of defense for her team to come out and win the second game. She got a much deserved rest in the second game but still cheered wildly for her team.

One of the few bright spots, Megan Sewell, got on base every time she was at bat with three walks and scored one of the two runs for Broward. She commented after the game saying, “It felt really good getting on base so much, but it would've felt better if we would've won.” Coach Staubly also commented after the first game saying, “Our defense killed us. We made some mistakes on defense when they had no one on base and it just snowballed from there.”
Sami Christiansen also had a good game with two hits including an RBI double in the fourth inning.

The second game was nothing short of a pitcher's duel. Misty Huber, who sat out game one, came in and simply displayed dominance. She had three strikeouts in the second inning before allowing a slap shot to Brevard's lead-off hitter which fell between the Seahawks’ right and center fielder. The ball rolled to the wall allowing the speedy hitter to come all the way around for an inside-the-park home run. After that Huber went right back to dominating the other team, striking out four more batters for a total of seven in the game.

A costly error in the fifth inning with two outs allowed two more runs to score for Brevard and pretty much sealed the game. Brevard's starter threw a gem for the Lady Titans allowing only two hits in the entire game, and pitching a shutout. Broward came up just short by a score of 3-0 in the end.

Coach Staubly commented on the second game saying, “We played better defense and Misty pitched a great game.” Huber, who didn't even know she had seven strikeouts until she was told said, “We did a lot better, we made some errors which really shouldn't happen but I liked our defense in the second game.”

Currently the Lady Seahawks are last in one of the toughest conferences in the state; a conference of five teams, three of which are 10 ten in the state and two of which are top 10 in the country. Brevard is one of those teams. Staubly said that his team can compete with every one of those teams, but mental mistakes are the only things stopping them. The Seahawks will face Indian River next as they continue to vie for a playoff seed.