Jackets Prepare for Senior Day on Wednesday

Recently, we played Hanover coming off of a split with Bluffton.  We knew we had to get the sweep over Hanover if we wanted to stay in the running for getting into the conference tournament.  We came out strong in the first game and won 6-0.  We continued to produce offensively to get the 6-3 win in game two.  Our theme of the week was Team Spirit. Getting the sweep against Hanover helped our team spirit a lot, because we had been down with our recent losses against Anderson and Bluffton.  It is important for us to maintain our team spirit going into a weekend with tough conference games.

Lately, during practice, we held our own Softball Olympics.  We split into five different teams and began competing on many different levels: defensively, offensively, a homerun derby, and an obstacle course.  During the defensive portion, we competed with both infield ground balls and outfield pop flies.  During the offensive portion, we competed with various pitches and bunts.  We have yet to finish all the events yet, but it’s a work in progress.  This whole thing was a great time, not to mention a great team bonding activity, especially before our long weekend away at Transylvania and Mount St. Joseph.

With this “rough” weather lately, our game against Manchester was postponed until next Wednesday.  This game was also supposed to be our senior night.  This game is important to everyone because it marks not only our last home game of the season, but it represents a closing to the seniors’ careers at DC.

Jackets Set for Match with Hanover

In the past seven days, we have had two very important conference match-ups. This past Saturday, we dropped two games against Anderson. They showed up with big bats, and our bats were unable to reciprocate. This day was also our annual “Take Your Dog to the Ballgame” day. We were able to raise over $180 for the Fort Defiance Humane Society and many people came out with their dogs to show their support.

On Wednesday, we split with our rivals, the Bluffton Beavers. Both games were tight contests. We came out on top in the first game but fell short in the second game and lost by one run. Our momentum picked back up in the fifth and sixth innings but was not quite enough to pull ahead for the win. This Saturday, we continue our conference play against Hanover at Sal Hench Field. This is also our first annual Defiance Softball Association Day.

Tasha Stucke, Ashley Switzer, Mollee Galloway

DC Softball Prepares for Conference Stretch

We played Denison on Tuesday and ended in a split. Our bats came alive again during these games, but we ended in a 9-8 loss in the eighth inning. Dr. Wolfe invited us over to his house for a special team dinner after the games. His wife and family cooked us a delicious dinner and even sent us home with desserts.

The Denison games were a close to our non-conference season. We returned to practice on Wednesday for a defensive and team building day. This was a nice break from the usually strenuous practice. Our challenge for team building was to find 25 different items with words on them and collect them and form a sentence. The sentence ended up reading “We know that what lies behind us and what lies ahead of us is of little importance when it is compared to what lies within us”.

The team discussed what this quote means, and we decided that it meant that we need to play our game and not dwell on the past or over think future games. Saturday’s games begin the part of season that we have been preparing for all season, and we finish up with strictly conference games. We are going to take it one pitch at a time and give our best effort.

Hey everyone!

Well, we are 2-0 in conference. It all started Saturday when we played Franklin College. We came out in the beginning with great intensity and it paid off in the end. We came out hitting right away and had solid defense during both games. We kept our intensity up the whole time and didn't let up even though we were up the whole time.

The JV girls played Indiana Tech Monday afternoon and came out with two tough losses. We have learned a lot about what we need to work on more as a team and what we need to do to improve. A big thing is communication. We realize that without communication, it makes it harder to come out with a win in the end.

Our theme this week was self-control.  We learned that self-control is an important factor in producing better results as a team.  As individuals, we need to have self-control in order to stay focused and productive during practices and not on other things.  We also need to stay positive for our teammates.

Wednesday we played Ohio Northern and came up with two very tough losses. This coming Saturday we play Adrian College.  We need to come out in these games with the same intensity that we did with Franklin and keep our bats and defense solid and get two more wins under our belts. Go Jackets!

Katie, Stephanie, Kari, Hallie