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Portage's Katie Stilwell fans 20 in a 7-inning no-hitter over Sauk Prairie

Seven inning game and 20 strikeouts!



That s keeping it Rising!



Hello Everyone – My good friend and protégé Katie Stilwell of Portage turned in a pretty impressive performance this afternoon in a game against Sauk Prairie. "Kitty" as we call her tossed a no-hitter and fanned 20 in a seven inning game. That s hummin it folks, simply hummin it! She s bound for Seton Hall next fall on a full athletic scholarship as well. That s the same Katie Stilwell who pitched Portage to the 2005 Division 2 state title and tossed shutouts against both Rice Lake and New London to get the state title. After recuperating from an injury during the 2006 season, she s back to her old form. We knew from our Wednesday night workouts in February that she had "it" back. On the last night she worked out with us, her dad had all he could do to stay on the bucket as "things" were really moving and shaking.



There have been some other great performances as well and if you have been reading every game summary that comes in to me and gets posted, you are well aware of them (like I am as I read and proof nearly every one of them). Here are a few other noteable performances so far this season.



Before I mention any of them, let me emphasize a couple of things. 1) I teach full-time and am the head softball coach at Poynette 2) I am a one-person operation with The Fastpitch Chronicle website 3) those two bits of information should help you realize that I need things sent to me in order to get them posted because I have absolutely no time to go looking for your scores and summaries. I copy and paste and then proof and edit as best I can with the little time I have to do so 4) If you want your players to get any kind of publicity on a statewide basis or you d like rankers, conference reps and district reps to know about your kids when it comes time to select post-season players, then it would behoove you to heed my advice – and that is – send the stuff to me and be timely with it. I ll post stuff late for you but keep in mind that people are not apt to go back a week or more in the past to look at your scores and I m not going to post last week s scores in this week s results!



Ok – Here a few notable performances from the first 2+ weeks of action



Poynette beat Westfield on March 20th and it was the 400th win for the Poynette Coach

Portage s Katie Stilwell tossed a no-hitter with 20 ks against Sauk Prairie and doubled as well

Stilwell has pitched two games and they are both shutouts (Baraboo and Sauk)

Racine Case s Alissa Koch throws no hitter and fans 18 vs Mukwonago

Koch followed that up with 12 Ks in six innings against Arrowhead

Koch fanned 6 in three innings and belted a three-run homer in a win over Horlick

Lancaster s Katie Schroeder had 13 ks in a win over Dodgeville then had 13 to beat Richland Ctr. on 3 hits

George (her last name) fanned 13 for Prairie du Chien in a win over Platteville

Deerfield s Ashley Gulbranson tossed a two-hitter at Princeton

Cuba City and Galena, Illinois played a 15-inning game where both pitchers fanned 23 but no names were available as nobody sent in the score to me

Katie Sutter of Barneveld tossed a two-hitter with 17ks against Belmont

Shoreland Luth. Rochelle Willkomm, hurled a 5 inn. no-hitter with 10s in a win over Heritage Christian

McFarland s Stephanie Schmikla tossed a one-hitter and fanned 10 in win over Belleville

Adams-Friendship pitcher Amanda Griese had a one-hitter vs Reedsburg

Rosholt s Anna Zdroik had 13K's on a 1-Hitter over Bowler Oconto s Natalie Ruechel tossed a five-inning no-hitter over Coleman

Jenny Franko was 3-for-3 for Kewaunee in a win over Michicot

Kewaunee beat Denmark on 4/2 and it was the first-ever win for that school over Denmark

De Soto senior Courtney Zeimet struck out eight batters and gave up one hit in five innings of work as the Pirates defeated Weston 15-1Pacelli s Jordan Olds starts the season out by throwing a perfect game and had 2 RBI s vs Wey-Fremont

Bayport s Miranda Szcepanski threw a no-hitter and struck out six while Sam Johnson had a bases-loaded triple to highlight an eight-run third inning for the Pirates

Thomas More pitcher Katie Boyle had 12Ks in a no-hitter over Pewaukee

Madison Memorial s Koykaar (no first name included) hit two homers and a triple in a twinbill vs Fondy

Miranda Kammeyer of Grantsburg launched a shot in excess of 260 feet in Grantsburg s first game of 07

Lourdes- B. Wolff tossed a no-hitter at Randolph and fanned 10

Bonduel s Ashley Berger threw a no hitter in five innings over Weyawega-Fremont

Pepin s Molly McIntosh 12 k's and no-hitter over Colfax

Lyndsay Swoboda struck out 12 as Algoma no-hit host NEW Lutheran

Wittenberg-Birnawood s Katie Betry had 14 strikeouts while going 2 for 3 at the plate over Shiocton



Ok – that s just some of the stuff I was able to glean from the stuff on the website tonight. There s more great stuff on there. From here on out, coaches and fans (and parents of course) should e-mail me notable performances for future bulletins.



Here are two crazy plays I witnessed today in a game I was watching. First play: Ball hit over rightfielder s head at base of fence. Rightfielder raises her hands and base ump starts running out there to look. Base of fence was lower than home plate so nobody could tell if the ball was under the fence or not. Rightfielder reached down and grabs ball and throws it toward second base. Base ump moves to his right about four or five steps and tries to catch the throw but it bounces and rolls between his legs. Runner was about half way to third when that happened. She scored as the third base coach kept her running. It was ruled a home run but – if I had been the coach of the team in the field I would have asked the umpire this question – "OK, I know the rule but if you weren t sure the ball was under the fence or not, why did you try to catch the throw? And if that s not what you were trying to do, why did you move in front of our throw and get in the way?" The team in the field s coach didn t ask those questions and the run scored as if nothing strange had just happened!



Those of you who have been reading these bulletins over the years know that I go to ball yards just to see something I had never seen before. I had never seen that happen before.



Here s the second one and it happened in the same game. Runner at third and no outs. Batter swings and misses and the catcher drops the ball. Runner heads for first and the catcher rifles a throw to the first sacker who is standing about five feet in front of first base and about 3 feet in fair territory. The runner at third was off on the throw to the plate so the first sacker rifles the ball to the plate immediately. The runner from third is called out (good call by the way). The batter-runner suddenly appears in front of me (I was right behind home plate) and she is heading for the bench. She disappears behind the fence. The plate umpire comes over by me and says, "Hi Bob, how are you today?" I said, "Hey I m good but I m confused. That kid at first never touched the base or tagged that batter runner and she headed for the dugout." The base ump never called the batter runner out, and the plate ump never saw the play. Play just resumed and when the inning was over the plate ump went out and told the base ump what really happened on that play.



That happened just that way. So what can you learn about that play? First of all the first base coach really goofed up. That batter-runner should have wound up on second base at the least. The first base coach was busy watching the throw to the plate and not coaching the batter runner. The base ump should have acted like he knew what had just happened by running over to the bench area and calling the batter-runner out when she vacated the field but he didn t. The base ump should have learned to keep an eye on his play and not sneak a peak to home plate where the plate ump had things under control. That s how great amounts of confusion occur at a ball yard. I typed about confusion in the previous bulletin! By the way, the defensive team s coaches had no clue as to what took place near first base either and got lucky when the batter/runner gave up and headed for the bench.



Hey, it s really late. Have a great day. I m going to Notre Dame on Wednesday if they aren t rained out. Scores from Wednesday, if there are any, or late scores from today, will be posted on my return on Thursday or tomorrow night if we don t go.



Here s to you and as always

Keep your eyes peeled for strange happenings and always

Keep it Rising!

Bob