Fastpitch falls in quarters of Championships
By Michal Tellos
Sports Editor
October 22, 2008
 The Lancers women’s fastpitch team ended their season on Sunday by getting knocked out of the quarter-finals by the McMaster Marauders in the Ontario Intercollegiate Women’s Fastpitch Association Championship by a score of 4-3.
The loss came after a win against the Queen’s Golden Gaels and a loss against the Ottawa Gee-Gees and the Laurier Golden Hawks on Saturday.
The Sunday loss was a very close game in which the Lancers blew a three-run lead later on in the game.
“It was Mac’s home game so we were up first and we scored one run. We scored a couple more runs to make it 3-0 and then McMaster got a run and made it 3-1 going into the bottom of the seventh. They just got some back-to-back singles and we blew the lead and we lost the game 4-3 in the bottom of the seventh,” said head coach Paula Stamatiadis.
The loss ends the season for the Lancers, who otherwise had a pretty good year.
There are, however, a few kinks that still need to be worked out.
“Defensively – my girls are great. Offensively, we got a lot better throughout the season. We need to work on confidence and knowing that we can beat the other team and we really need to work on closing a game out – when we’ve had the lead in the sixth or seventh inning we’ve had the tendency to give it away,” said Stamatiadis.
Saturday’s loss against Laurier saw the bases loaded twice to no avail, in addition to a wasted 11 at-bats.
Despite the quarter-final knock-off, Lancers Jenna Nichol and Carly Erina were named OIWFA all-stars.
The girls will hope to begin a weekly workout routine in the off-season, and hopefully enter into some tournaments in summer leagues next year. The team has no reason of not being any stronger next year, either, as nearly all of the veteran players will be returning.
In addition to this, several rookies came along strong this season. “The girls came a long way. We had three rookies in our starting line up who came along well, and we had veterans who had to move to different positions. And they made that switch. By the end of the year they looked like they’d been playing there for years,” said Stamatiadis.
Stamatiadis is very confident about this formula. “Next year it’s full out – we declare war on the rest of the league and get it done,” she said.
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