Jackson gets back up to speed
MARK NELKE | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 12 years, 9 months AGO
<p>Lake City High's Jordyn McCracken chases down a Coeur d'Alene High hit to left field in second inning.</p>
<p>Lake City High's Dakota Wilson sprints past Chelsey Rasmussen from Coeur d'Alene at first base to beat the throw from the catcher during the T-wolve's three-run shutout Tuesday against the Vikings.</p>
Mark Nelke covers high school and North Idaho College sports, University of Idaho football and other local/regional sports as a writer, photographer, paginator and editor at the Coeur d’Alene Press. He has been at The Press since 1998 and sports editor since 2002. Before that, Mark was the one-man sports staff for 16 years at the Bonner County Daily Bee in Sandpoint. Earlier, he was sports editor for student newspapers at Spokane Falls Community College and Eastern Washington University. Mark enjoys the NCAA men's basketball tournament and wiener dogs — and not necessarily in that order. | April 18, 2012 9:00 PM
COEUR d’ALENE — Hailey Jackson had been struggling to hit the off-speed pitch, so the Lake City High sophomore has been putting in extra work this season on staying back and not getting fooled.
That extra work paid off on Tuesday.
Jackson smashed a two-run homer in the first inning and Lake City went on to beat the Coeur d’Alene Vikings 3-0 in 5A Inland Empire League softball play Tuesday afternoon.
Vanessa Shippy lined a double to right center to lead off the bottom of the first inning for Lake City (9-1, 5-0 5A IEL). Jackson followed with a line drive over the center field fence, just right of dead center.
“I’ve been hitting off our pitching coach, trying to wait on off-speed pitches,” said Jackson of her first homer of the season, and second of her high school career. “I waited for the pitch and, my goal was obviously to score Vanessa from second. I wasn’t looking for a home run.”
Casey Stangel followed with a line shot off the center field fence for a single. She closed out the scoring with a home run to left-center in the sixth.
“I like that we came out and attacked in the first inning, and had aggressive swings,” Lake City coach Laura Tolzmann said. “Casey threw very very well ... and (Coeur d’Alene’s Lindsie) Scholwinski was throwing a good changeup today as well. But we need to come out the next game and be strong through all seven innings.”
Stangel, a junior, struck out nine and was one strike from a no-hitter before sophomore Brooke Albertson of Coeur d’Alene (7-4, 3-4) grounded a single just wide of first and into right field for the Vikings’ lone hit.
“Two pitches — that was the difference,” said Coeur d’Alene coach Larry Bieber, referring to the home run balls.
“I was real proud of the poise our kids showed, because they did not get their heads down (being down 2-0 so early); they knew they could come back and compete. Usually she (Stangel) gets two runs and she’s done, but we battled and battled and battled.”
Coeur d’Alene’s best chance came in the third inning, when Scholwinski walked and Nikki Ragsdale was hit by a pitch to open the inning. But Stangel recorded a strikeout, and after Kyeli Parker sacrificed the runners to second and third, Zoe Clark bounced sharply to the mound and that threat was over.
Ragsdale started in the circle, and was replaced by Scholwinski after one time through the order. Bieber said they made the switch because Lake City is good at reading the Viking pitchers the second time through the lineup. Scholwinski pitched through the lineup once, and also faced the top four hitters a second time since those batters had given Ragsdale trouble, before Ragsdale came back in to finish.
Scholwinski struck out seven in 3 2/3 innings of relief, and only allowed the one hit — Stangel’s homer.
Coeur d’Alene is scheduled to play a makeup game at Central Valley today at 4. Lake City travels to Moscow on Thursday for a doubleheader.
Coeur d’Alene 000 000 0 — 0 1 0
Lake City 200 001 x — 3 5 0
Nikki Ragsdale, Lindsie Scholwinski (2), Ragsdale (6) and Rashell Shaffer; Casey Stangel and Vanessa Shippy. W — Stangel (9-1). L — Ragsdale (4-2).
HITS: Cd’A — Albertson. LC — Shippy, Jackson, Stangel 2, Kritz. 2B — Shippy. HR — Jackson (1), Stangel (3).
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“The whole process has been completely amazing,” said Nathan Williams, now in his fourth season as the Badgers boys basketball coach. “And the parents … it’s an hour and a half to Spokane, Coeur d’Alene, when we’d play an AAU game, and an hour and a half back, and there were so many times there was 6, 8 inches of snow. And we’ve got a game at 8 a.m. They’d always schedule us at 8 a.m., coming from Bonners. So we’re waking up at 5 … it was crazy. But the commitment from the parents and the kids has been amazing.”