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To win games this season, Warsaw's girls softball team must do what coaches like to call the "little things."
Laying down bunts. Moving runners over. Making the routine plays.
The name of Warsaw's game must be pitching and defense, because as Warsaw coach Craig Helfrich will tell you, the Tigers do not have hitters who can pound other teams into submission.
The Tigers have little room for error, and what room they had left them in Monday's season opener. The Tigers hosted and lost to Logansport 7-2.
For the first four innings, Warsaw made plays, and the Tigers led 2-1.
In the fifth and sixth innings, the Tigers did not make plays. By the time the seventh inning started, Logansport had turned a 2-1 deficit into a 7-2 lead.
The plays that killed the Tigers did not go into the scorebooks as official errors, but they were mental mistakes that buried them. By botching plays in the field, they gave Logansport extra outs.
Both were the same type of plays. Both were on fly balls hit to the outfield. Both times the Warsaw outfielders misplayed the balls into extra-base hits by letting balls hit at them go over their heads. Both times, the Tiger outfielders started in when they should have broken back.
With one out in the fifth inning, Tera Franklin smashed a ball that Warsaw right fielder Kari Fribley misplayed into a triple. Had Fribley caught the ball, Logansport would have had two outs.
Instead, Franklin drove home one run and sparked a four-run inning. Later in the inning, Heather Bacon singled, and Courtney Francis and Jae Huff each doubled. Logansport led 5-2 after five.
In the sixth inning, Warsaw center fielder Marie Brown, the lone Tiger senior, broke in on a ball hit by Crystal Nipper that sailed over her head. Nipper's hit put runners on second and third with no outs. Both scored on routine groundouts by the next two batters. Logansport led by what would be the final, 7-2.
Turning routine plays into four-run innings are the kinds of things that make coaches mutter, "Oh boy," the first two words out of Helfrich's mouth after the game.
"They scored five runs when we shouldn't have allowed any," Helfrich said.
Granted, the winds were swirling and gusting all day - the centerfield flags alternated between blowing straight out and blowing to right field - but that didn't change Helfrich's opinion.
"Yeah, it was windy, but that's no excuse," he said. "Those are still plays we should have made."
For the first four innings, the Tigers sailed along. They made the plays, and Michelle Liebsch pitched well. The one time they had a chance to score runs, they capitalized.
Laura Overton led off the game with a single. Fribley followed her reaching laying down a bunt and reaching first when Logansport second baseman Amy Bacon, covering first base, dropped the ball. Overton scrambled to third on the error.
Overton gave Warsaw the 1-0 lead when she scored on wild pitch by Steph Coon. Fribley went to third on the wild pitch and scored on a groundout by Brown, giving Warsaw the 2-0 lead.
"We played good the first four innings," Helfrich said. "We had solid defense. But as I told the girls, we have to play seven strong innings, not three or four.
"With this team, with one senior, we have to make plays. We can't blame it on inexperience anymore. These girls played last year."
Coon, a senior right-hander, settled down and allowed only one more hit the rest of the way. She tossed the complete game, allowing two hits and walking none. She struck out eight.
"She's a good pitcher," Helfrich said. "She did a good job changing speeds. We did a great job early against her, but late in the game, we couldn't make contact."
Liebsch, hurt by Warsaw's defense, allowed six hits and four earned runs in 4-2/3 innings in taking the loss. She struck out seven and walked two.
Warsaw, 0-1, is at Mishawaka this afternoon.
"Our schedule only gets tougher now," Helfrich said.
Helfrich, who knows all to well that his team must pitch well and must make routine plays to win games, contemplated changes.
"With our outfield, you could see different people out there," he said. "Today they hit three balls that should have been caught but weren't. We'll keep trying until we find the right combination. You can't just give a good team like Logansport five runs."
