West Holmes softball finding rhythm at the right time

Having won six of its last eight games, the West Holmes softball team is grinding the gears into motion when it matters most. With a busy slate of games this week, virtually one a day, the Knights have gotten the best of Mother Nature early on.

The trick: swinging the bats, executing defensively and getting some pretty good pitching from the circle. It’s all added up to West Holmes getting back to .500 at 7-7 after starting the season at 1-5. Next up for the Blue and Red: Danville, Wooster twice, Clear Fork and a to-be-determined opponent for April 25, basically five games in the span of the next six days.

After beating Philo April 17, it was a moment to relax before the storm of the upcoming week.

Weathering a little adversity from the Electric, who cut it to 3-2 midway through the fifth, Gabby Fowler, just a sophomore, put the seatbelt on and the game on cruise control. Finishing with six strikeouts, Fowler went the distance, allowing just two earned runs in an 11-3 win.

“She did a great job calling her pitches, hitting her spots a lot, and she mixed it up,” said West Holmes coach Shannon Fogle. “She took some chances on pitches, and she put them where they needed to be, and we got some easy outs in big situations.”

More importantly, with a young team featuring only two seniors in Zalina Proper and Briar Cline, the Knights showed fight as they answered the Electric. Responding to Philo’s surge, cutting it to one (3-2), the West Holmes offense gave Fowler the cushion she needed with eight runs over the span of the next two frames.

“It’s huge to see us fight back like that,” said Fogle. “The more we can see, the more we can learn from, the better. We’ve got some young girls out there still learning, so it helps us a lot.”

It wasn’t just one batter; it was batter after batter, putting together good at-bats and delivering at the plate as Proper, Fowler, Cline, Payton Hudson, Emma Miller, Payson Dial, Mari Patterson, Trinity Ramseyer and Zoe Walter each delivered solid at-bats. It’s that type of hitting that has proven to be the key to the Knights’ surge these past eight games.

“Our hitting has been really consistent, and we’ve been hitting it really hard,” said Fogle. “Also, we’ve been settling in, and we practice hitting a lot. It was a focus in our offseason, and it’s a focus this spring for us.”

It’s something that Fogle believes will be key for West Holmes as it continues its surge this week and the rest of the season. With an eye for bigger things to come, especially playoff time, the Knights will continue to look to piece things together and build.

One thing is safe to say: the hitting is coming to life and tearing up opponents, and right now it’s helping to carry this young team, giving them the chance to learn on the fly, put the pieces together and put themselves right where they want to be when it matters most.

“I’d like to keep hitting like we are, get our pitching a little more consistent and clean up our defense a little bit more,” said Fogle. “That’s something we keep working on.”