Schumann, Celina blast Indians (04/15/03)

For the Fort Recovery softball team, facing a stellar pitching performance and committing eight errors on the defensive end was more than enough to make for a long afternoon.

Celina (8-1) starting pitcher Stephanie Schumann plowed through the Indian lineup, while the Fort Recovery defense committed errors in all but one inning on the way to a six-inning 20-1 defeat.

“That was vintage Schumann,” Celina coach John Hendricks said of his starter, who collected 18 wins a year ago. “That’s how she pitched last year, so to get her back and pitching that way was nice.”

“Celina is a very good team,” Indian coach Marie Osterholt said. “We need to learn that when we make a mistake we have to move on. We moved a lot of different people in different places tonight. We didn’t communicate and we didn’t have the defense, and shot ourselves in the foot.”

Indian starter Sarah Schmitz quickly had two outs on the board in the first, before she surrendered a triple to Megan Harner and a towering two-run homer to Katie Kramer, which gave the Bulldogs the early 2-0 advantage.

But for as well as Schumann pitched, Fort Recovery (4-2) had her flustered in the bottom of the first frame. With two out, Indian center fielder Julie Faller blasted a triple into the gap in left-center. Sophomore Krystal Rammel followed with an RBI single back up the middle to narrow Celina’s lead to 2-1.

But that’s as close as the Indians would come.

Schumann, realizing there was something mechanically wrong in her pitching motion, opted to fix the problem in the bullpen while her team batted in the top half of the second. The extra work paid off, as she would face no more than four batters in each of the next four innings. At one point, she retired seven straight Indian batters — including four consecutive strikouts — before Ciera Rammel had an infield single with two outs in the fifth.

“I had to work out of my funk,” Schumann said. “There was just something mechanically that I wasn’t doing right, so I had to work out of it. But I got out of it and finally started to click. I felt good tonight and it’s been my first really good game of the season.”

“The first inning she wasn’t getting her hips through,” Hendricks said. “She has not been pitching as well as she did last year, but she corrected her own mistake, and nobody’s going to outwork Stephanie Schumann.”

For her part, Schmitz pitched well early for the Indians, but the defensive blunders helped to push the game out of reach. With three innings complete the Bulldogs held a slim 4-1 advantage, which slipped to 7-1 after four and then spiraled out of control in the fifth.

Schmitz walked the bases loaded, then pinch-hitter Ashley Luebke lined a two-run single up the middle to extend the lead to 9-1. Julia Siefring reached on an error at first base, which plated another run, and Harner followed with a bloop single to right to score two more which pushed the lead to 12-1.

Harner collected three hits on the day, and Shay Adams was 2-for-4 with a double, three runs scored and a walk.

“I think we started off the first couple of innings and were hitting the ball hard,” Osterholt said. “But once we started making mistakes in the field, it started effecting the bats, and we just can’t do that.”

In five innings Schumann surrendered five hits, had six strikeouts and gave up two walks en route to the victory. Melanie Heyne finished things up in the sixth, striking out two of the four batters she faced.

Fort Recovery catcher Joscie Kaup was 2-for-3 with a pair of singles. Schmitz finished the day with seven strikeouts and eight walks in six innings, with 11 of the 20 runs earned.

“They made a couple mistakes and you could feel them deflate,” Hendricks said of the Indians. “But overall, this is the best game we’ve played so far.”[[In-content Ad]]