Andrews – The Andrews softball team’s game against Cherokee on Thursday followed a similar path of the Lady Wildcats’ other early season games. Andrews mostly did what it needed to do in the field and got a good pitching performance from senior Summer Garrett. But the bats were a little quiet, and that made the difference in a 6-1 loss to the Lady Braves.
“If we had scored a couple of runs early, this could’ve been a real ball game,” head coach Frank Maennle said. “It was still a heck of a game. I can’t say enough about the way Summer pitched today. But that’s what we’ve been getting out of them most of the year.”
Andrews softball (1-3 overall, 0-2 Smoky Mountain Conference) was in the opposite situation of Andrews baseball this year. They had enough kids to play but didn’t have a coach. Maennle stepped in because he still wanted the girls to have a season. His only softball experience is coaching the Lady Wildcats in 1980, so he’s relying on assistant coaches David Queen, Kenny Clark and Emily Merritt while he learns the nuances of the game.
Andrews opened the season with a 15-10 win over the Asheville Trailblazers on March 7, then followed with a 4-2 loss at Rosman on March 9 and a 12-1 loss to Cherokee on March 14. Two days later against the Lady Braves, Cherokee (5-0, 2-0) struck for two in the first on an RBI triple by Jenna Cruz and an RBI single by Julia Marie Layno. Garrett and a solid Andrews infield featuring Carley Clark at first base, Leah Preston at second base, Hannah Talkington at third base and Kinleigh Queen at shortstop kept the Lady Braves at bay, but couldn’t get anything going off Cherokee pitcher Mahala Allison.
Andrews did not get a hit until the fourth inning, and didn’t score until an RBI single by Alexis Beasley in the bottom of the seventh. Cherokee, meanwhile, tacked on an RBI single from Kieran Wolfe in the fifth before adding three more runs in the top of the seventh. Two of the runs in the seventh came on an outfield error, and Maennle expects mistakes at times with a young team. The Lady Wildcats have only two seniors and four juniors, with the rest of the team made up of freshmen and sophomores.
With that youth, Maennle and the coaching staff are trying to keep the confidence up. Andrews has not historically been a successful softball program, and Maennle wants everyone to know how important they are to the team to try to keep things moving in the right direction. Luckily, the Lady Wildcats already had a good attitude to start the year, and have not backed down from any team so far.
“That’s a good way to start right there whether you can or you can’t,” Maennle said. “Until somebody proves something different to you, you have to keep competing and doing those things until that gives you an opportunity to be successful.”