Published: May 21, 2008 01:08 pm            

Joshua ready to battle Ladycats

One District 8-4A softball team will be traveling to Austin next week for the University Interscholastic League softball state championships, as Joshua and Aledo meet in a one-game playoff to determine the Region I champion.

The game is scheduled for 8 p.m. Thursday at Aledo High School.

The state finals will be held May 29-31 at McCombs Field on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin.

The buzz around Joshua High School is intense according to head coach Traci Brooks.

“[Monday], when I was having a hard time finding out when and where we were going to play I can’t tell you the number of people who asked me and I had to keep telling them ‘I don’t know yet’,” Brooks said. “Everybody around here is buzzing. It’s an exciting time.”

Joshua has won four best-of-three series to reach region finals, sweeping Fort Worth South Hills in the bidistrict round 20-2 and 25-0 and eliminating District 5-4A champion Denton Ryan, the squad that eliminated Joshua in 2007, in the second round.

Joshua won the first game 7-0 before losing Game 2 8-6, the only loss of the playoffs for Joshua to this point. The Lady Owls rebounded to win the rubber match against the Lady Raiders 4-1 to advance.

Joshua eliminated another District 5-4A team in the regional quarterfinals, as the Lady Owls swept Denton Guyer 4-2 and 7-3.

Last weekend, Joshua swept District 3-4A champion Pampa 2-0 and 8-1.

When determining the logistics of the regional final match, Brooks pushed for the one-game series while Aledo head coach Kevin Cook wanted a best-of-three series.

“I wanted the one game series and he didn’t,” Brooks said. “He told me the reason he didn’t want the one game series was because of Cleburne in 2006.

“He said he was scared to do a one game series against us. We wanted to play one game because we think we can use everything we have in that one game.”

Another reason for wanting the one-game format was the fact that Aledo has only lost one game all season, so defeating the Ladycats twice in the span of two or three days would be a tall order.

“It would be hard to beat them twice,” Brooks said. “I think we can beat them twice, but we’re going to use everything we have in that one game. It’d be hard to keep the emotions and level of play up to do it a second time, or even a third game.”

Aledo received a bye in the bidistrict round after winning the District 8-4A championship. In the area round, the Ladycats swept Sherman High School 9-0 and 3-2.

The two runs scored by Sherman in the second game are the lone runs Aledo has allowed in the playoffs.

The Ladycats shut out their next two opponents in one-game playoffs, defeating Saginaw 5-0 in the regional quarterfinal and eliminating Wolfforth Frenship 12-0 in the regional semifinals.

The Lady Owls and Ladycats have already met three times this season, with Aledo earning three wins

Aledo downed Joshua 4-1 on Feb. 29, 2-0 on March 15 and 1-0 on March 28. Joshua was the only team to score against Aledo in district play. Joshua was the only team to score against Aledo in district play, and Brooks says the previous experience will benefit her team.

“It definitely helps us to know exactly what their strengths and weaknesses are,” Brooks said. “We’ve got their stats, how they’ve pitched to us, how we’ve pitched to them, how our batters have done against Whitney [Canion]. We’re going use all that information.”

Canion, Aledo’s star senior pitcher and future Baylor Lady Bear, will be sure to take the mound for the Ladycats on Thursday. As for who will pitch for Joshua, Brooks said that it will be a game-day decision between Kayci Wilson and Heather Dennie.

“I usually don’t do my lineup until the day of the game,” Brooks said. “We’re day-to-day on pitchers. Last week Kayci’s back was hurt and Heather has been hurt off and on, and it’ll just be who feels good that day.”

Aledo has reached the regional finals in each of the past two seasons, but has never made it to Austin, falling to Denton Ryan in 2007 and Cleburne the year before. Despite having never played in a regional final, Brooks says that the pressure will be squarely on Aledo’s shoulders.

“I think it’s going to work in our advantage because it’s two years in a row that they’ve been knocked out in the same spot,” Brooks said. “They have the pressure on them to not get knocked out and my girls are going to play like they’ve played the rest of the games. It’s just another game to us.”

        

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