Shelbi Schultz slides into home plate under South Tahoe catcher Drue Chapman's arm.
The Lady Wave softball team dominated its first league weekend against South Tahoe, taking strong wins in every game.
This Saturday Fallon plays Truckee. Due to snow on the field, the games were moved. They will be at McQueen High School in Reno at 11 a.m.
The Lady Wave won the first match of Friday’s doubleheader 18-3 in five innings.
The Vikings started with a lead, but Fallon quickly took off and denied them further runs. The second game of the day was a 16-0 loss for South Tahoe. Over three innings Fallon raced around the diamond while keeping the Vikings off the bases.
Thursday’s game was another one-sided win for Fallon, 17-0. The Lady Wave exploded to a strong 14-0 lead in the first inning. The Vikings came back in the top of the second inning as pitcher Kendra Conard allowed Fallon only three more runs the rest of the game.
Fallon’s Faith Cornmesser was pitcher of record for Thursday’s game, striking out five of the 12 batters she faced, and the second game of Friday’s doubleheader, where she struck out five of 10 batters.
Teammate Hannah Hitchcock was pitcher of record for the first of Friday’s games with Shelbi Schultz pitching in the first inning.
Fallon coach Tammie Shemenski said the Lady Wave had a great series and became stronger with each game. She felt they were a little sloppy at the start of Friday’s first game, but bounced back quickly.
“Our team is tough that way,” she said. “We’re not going to die that way with one, two, seven, eight runs ahead of us. We’re always going to bounce back and come back at you.”
She also said the games were a great start to her team’s league season. She said the Lady Wave needed to start off with big wins and felt they would only get stronger from here.
Fallon’s Staci Kalt said they have a united team this year and her hope is that will take them far in the season. She said the victories were amazing and she’s “stoked” for what the season brings.
“My team is so versatile, they make it hard for me to decide on a lineup,” Shemenski said. “I have such a great team, I can put a lot of different people in different places.”
Vikings coach Eric Owens said the weather was a factor in their losses; he said they’ve been confined to training in the gym and haven’t had much field time.
“We came into it with a spring training mentality,” he said. “We haven’t had a chance to get on the grass and the dirt.”
Overall, Owens felt the games went well; he said it gave them a chance to see the competition and where they are in comparison. He recalled they went to regionals last year after a similar start to the season.
“We’re going to come back again and go back to work,” Owens said. “That’s what you do, you try to have a short-term memory and try to focus on the end of the year.”
Shemenski said she’d be doing running drills to prepare for Saturday. She said the players need to listen to her more when they’re on the bases and have better confidence; she recalled there were times she knew the runner could make it to the next base, but they stayed put.