Milwaukee Angels are no match for Wisconsin Lightning

In the Saturday evening Bracket Play stage of the Battle of the Borders, the Wisconsin Lightning team over-matched the Milwaukee Angels in an 11-2 victory in the 14U bracket.

Things fell about apart quickly for the Angels, who surrendered seven unanswered runs in the first three innings. A five-run second inning really took the wind out of the Angels, who booted the ball around for most of the game. Jenna Siedl started the game on the mound, but would last only three innings as her defense struggled to get outs behind her.

Lightning Coach Clint Peterson praised the team effort, as his team was quick to take advantage of their opponent's miscues.

"Every girl played great defense today and put their heart into it, and (on offense) we put the ball in play," said Peterson.

The Angels got a couple runners on in the top of the fifth and seemingly were on the verge of a rally, but Seidl stuck with starter Alaina Adams, who got through the jam with only one run allowed. 

"She's young and working at it, we just wanted to give her the opportunity to work through it and she did an awesome job and finished," said Peterson.
Adams allowed only two runs for the game, which she attributed to the girls behind her.

"We definitely had a strong defense, and I think my curve ball was definitely working for me today," said Adams.

Offensively, the Lightning relentlessly capitalized on running opportunities on the base paths, which set them up well for scoring chances.

The Lightning had to finish the game without catcher Megan Baker, who took a pitch off the face mask when a contact lens fogged up on her. She left the game after the top of the third inning, and tried to return for the top of the fourth, but Coach Peterson sat her as a precaution.

"She was a little dizzy there for a second, so we'll see how it plays out for tomorrow, but we need her for (Sunday) so that's why we took her out to let her rest," said Peterson.

Despite a lopsided loss, Angels Coach Jerry Rivera found positives to take from the game.

"I saw our girls give a great effort, make some great plays, but at the end of the day we didn't make enough plays," said Rivera. "It's many of these girls' first times playing against this level of competition and I think that got to them a bit."

Coach Rivera was optimistic that there was a lesson for both players and coaches in facing an opponent like the Lightning.

"As coaches we take that pretty seriously, and I owe it to the girls to get them prepared for the next time we face competition like this," said Rivera.

As things began to spiral out of hand in the fourth inning, Rivera made a couple pitching substitutions, bringing in Maddie Meulemans and Kayla Preisler in the fourth inning to both "stop the bleeding" and give the two some well-earned innings.

"We hit the ball fairly decent against some very good pitching, but unfortunately it was a lot of atom-balls right at defenders," said Rivera.

Ice Outlast Lightning in 18U Bracket Play

The Windy City Ice Gray defeated the Wisconsin Lighting 4-3 in the late contest Saturday evening in the 18U division.

Ice Pitcher Amanda Osterhus dominated the Lightning lineup for the first four plus innings until an unfortunate sequence in the top of the fifth. A comeback line drive to Osterhus hit the palm of her pitching hand just below the pinkie, and forced her to be removed from the game. She was relieved by Chloe Miller.

With Osterhus out of the game, the previously dormant bats of the Lightning woke up with force in the top of the sixth. The inning started with a lead-off walk by Alexa Rae Rodriguez, which was followed by a lengthy at-bat by Tori Golden, who fouled off numerous pitches before driving a single up the middle. A couple batters later, Julia Sanchez drove in the first run of the game for the Lightning, which would be followed by an error and infield hit which drove in two additional runs. With the tying run on third and go-ahead on second, Jennifer Giesey battled but popped out to the catcher to end the game.

Windy City Coach Fred Barrios highlighted the performance of Osterhus that set the Ice up for the victory.

"Her movement was on point, command was there, and her defense had her back," said Barrios.

"I was going in and out, trying to mix it up with our shifts," said Osterhus.

Coach Barrios was also pleased at the hitting he saw from his team as well. The Lightning outfield was busy as line drives were hit their way all game. 
"I was happy that we started finding our line drive swings again," said Barrios. "Our past few games we've seen a lot of pop-ups, today was a lot better."
For Lightning Cach Scott Hermes, the biggest struggle of the evening was the late arrival of the bats.

"The biggest struggle was that we didn't really consistently hit the ball well today," said Hermes. "Some girls really worked the count well, but no one ever really put the barrel on the ball."

Hermes also highlighted the play of his outfield of Courtney Dunkleberger, Alexa Rae Rodriguez and Brooke Lipinski, which received a lot of activity as Windy City frequently squared up the softball off of pitcher Ciera Jones. 

"They had a great weekend overall, I can't say enough good things about them because they really played hard," said Hermes. "Half of playing the outfield is getting good reads off the bat and they were spot on this weekend."

Written coverage of the 2016 Battle of the Borders provided by Zac Bellman, who can by found on Twitter @ZacBellman_WNY.