By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Sports Editor
The Sitka All Stars softball team, ages 8 to 10, put up a strong fight but fell to the Ketchikan All Stars squad, Monday evening at Moller Field. For the young Sitka players, the tournament was their first chance to play on turf.
Sitka lost 22-20 Monday in the closest game of the series so far. On Friday, Sitka lost 16-1, followed by a 26-16 loss Saturday and 22-6 loss Sunday.
The two teams play one more time, at 6 p.m. tonight at Moller Field.
Win or lose, for Novah Schmidt the highlight of the tournament so far has been learning how to slide on turf.
“It was fun getting to slide… It’s a lot harder to slide and I couldn’t slide the first time I tried to slide here. My feet would stop me and then I would fall forward,” Schmidt said after Monday’s game.
Sitka Little League All Stars softball player Novah Schmidt steals home, with her teammate Emery Carley at bat again the Ketchikan All Stars, Monday at Moller Park. Both teams play again today. (Sentinel photo)
At age 10, she’s played softball for years, but always on the grass field near Keet Gooshi Heen school.
Her 9-year-old teammate, Averie Haavig, also noted how different it is to slide on a turf field.
“In the dirt, the dirt would slide and the turf would not slide,” Haavig said.
For much of the game, the teams stayed neck and neck, but as the fifth inning began, Sitka couldn’t keep up enough pressure and Ketchikan kept the lead.
For Madison Skan, 9, the closeness of the loss was due to increased effort on the part of her team.
“I think we could win the next game if we tried really hard and we just tried to hit the ball and watch the ball… We just tried harder than we did in the last games,” Skan said.
She stressed the need to continue playing hard even as the team tires in the late game.
“We should try to run as fast as we can even if we’re tired, and we should try to hit the ball as hard as we can,” she said.
Haavig echoed Skan’s confidence, saying that Sitka has a chance to win tonight.
“I feel that we can try to win the next game… We kind of knew what the Ketchikan team was like and knew what we had to do to get people out,” Haavig said.
On that, Schmidt agreed.
“If we try harder, I think that maybe we could win the game…,” she said. “I think we should watch the ball, all the way until it hits our bat, and then run as fast as we can.”
The pandemic canceled the 2020 Little League season before it ever began, leaving young athletes with a gap in training. Assistant coach Jeren Schmidt said her team has shown great resilience. Despite the losses, she said, the young athletes are still eager to play.
“This has been a learning year for the girls, a very big learning year. Good sportsmanship,” the coach said. “They’ve faced some hard losses over the last four days and not one of them is down. They’re all just excited to play, so it’s wonderful… These are the most resilient kids I’ve ever seen. They are just excited to play and not down one bit.”
