SOUTH WHITLEY - Tippecanoe Valley softball coach John Strong was more than a little disappointed in his team's 3-0 loss at Whitko Wednesday afternoon.
"This is the worst game we've played all year," Strong said about his team's performance. "We haven't played in a while, because of rain outs, and we were just not on our game."Entering the first Three Rivers Conference game for both squads, it appeared, at least record-wise, the Lady Vikings (9-3, 0-1 TRC) had the advantage on the Lady Wildcats (4-7, 1-0 TRC). However, that's not how things played out.
"We've been struggling the last two weeks," Whitko coach Tiffany Walther said. "The last few games, we haven't scored more than one run. So, tonight, our goal was to score more than one."
Whitko's initial run came on an RBI-ground out by sophomore Audra Day that scored sophomore Karissa Olinske in the third inning.
That Olinske-Day combination worked for a score, but also worked on defense, preventing the Valley offense from getting started.
Taking the calls from Day, Olinske pitched seven innings of shutout softball, striking out seven and allowing just three hits.
"For her, hitting her spot is the most important thing," Walther said about Olinske's pitching. "With the way Valley was swinging the bats, our goal was to keep the ball low and out of their power zone. Audra Day did a good job of calling those pitches."
Valley entered the game with six girls batting .375 or better, so their three-hit performance was very perplexing to Strong.
"This is the kind of night you hope will not come," he said. "We haven't had a game like this, since the first game of the season against NorthWood. We've won our last two games with the 10-run rule and hit well in both of those. This was just a night you don't want to see."
While Valley's offense sputtered, Whitko put two more runs on the board in the fifth, with senior Amber Blankenship scoring on a sacrifice-fly by Olinske and sophomore Jill VanHoozen scoring on an RBI-single by Day.
The two runs helped to solidify Whitko's conference-opening win, which was a very welcomed sign for Walther.
"It's refreshing," she said. "We had good energy the entire game. Now we have something to build on."
Walther is pleased with the start of her team's TRC season, but Strong is just looking forward to getting the rest of the conference season going.
"It's a long season and the TRC has a lot of strong teams," he said. "It may be a deal where we all beat on each other. At least, that's what I'm hoping for right now. Hopefully we'll bounce back. We were a totally different team tonight than I've seen in the last seven games."
Both teams are back in TRC action Friday for 5 p.m. games, as Valley travels to Manchester and Whitko will be at Northfield.
