Lewistown @ North Fulton (Softball)
(4/19/10)
Monday began with another one of those, "where am I going today?" moments. Early in the morning, I checked out the area baseball/softball schedule, and tried to find a match within drive time from work, and see a team or two I hadn't checked out this season.
The perfect destination was catching some Prairieland Conference softball between Lewistown, as they visited their neighbors to the north, North Fulton. The Wildcats of North Fulton play their softball in Fairview, which is a five mile drive south on Route 97 from Spoon River Valley High School (located between London Mills and Fairview). Valley is one half of the North Fulton co-op, along with Cuba High School.
I shot Lewistown head coach Joey McLaughlin an email saying, time permitting, I would head over and cover the game, and would like to talk with a couple girls after the game. He replied with a few names to talk with.
Normally, Monday's are pretty tight to squeeze in a 4:30 game, but today we had some quick meetings at work, and was able to head out the door at 3:30 to make the nearly one hour drive over to Fairview. There is no easy way to get to Fairview, from Monmouth. I actually missed a turn down a country road early in the trip, that, according to Garmin, added two minutes to my drive time.
The path, the GPS directed me, took me over to Cameron, then the country road that shoots from Cameron over to Route 41 between Galesburg and Abingdon. From there, I drive through Abingdon, down to the crossroads, where the highway meets Route 116. A left hand turn, and the drive goes through Fulton County, past London Mills, and on out to the intersection with Route 97. At this intersection is where you find Spoon River Valley High School. It is five miles from this point into Fairview.
It was 4:28 when I pulled into town, next to the diamonds in Fairview. I noticed the Lewistown Indians were already at-bat, meaning the top of the first inning had already commenced. My guestimation, was they had a 4:25 start time, which has been the usual at many games I have been to this season.
This was my first trip to the Fairview park. By the way, there are no outfield fences in Fairview. I was pretty amazed at the quality of the facilities here. Brand new, really nice scoreboard, decent dugouts, and even a press box behind home plate. There were a few bleachers, which is where I sat, just to the left of home plate.
Lewistown had jumped out to a 1-0 lead by the time I popped a squat. As I was walking into the park, Katie Dinkheller hit an RBI double, to make it 2-0. Courtney McKown, North Fulton's starting pitcher hit a single in the first inning for the host Wildcats, but she would be the inning's only baserunner.
McKown turned around, and struck out the side in the second inning. It was a 1-2-3 inning for the Wildcats in the 2nd inning as well. It was very chilly, with cloudy skies and cool temperatures, not to mention a cool breeze blowing. I am guessing, game time temperatures in the low 60's.
Knowing it was going to be cool, I had my jacket ready to be worn, but after getting out of my car upon arriving, I decided it wasn't needed. About a half of an inning into the game, I decided I made the wrong assesment. There was no going back now, it was just that temperature, where it was cold, but not too cold. I decided to tough it out.
Rachel Bull led off the third inning for Lewistown with an infield single. She advanced to 2nd base on a bunt attempt by Whitney Wilkinson, and was nearly caught up in the base paths, trying to get to third base, but made it safely back to 2nd. Bull would score on an RBI double by Jordyn Rhodes, making it 3-0 Lewistown.
The only base runner North Fulton had in the 3rd inning was Renee Slater, who reached on an error. A grandmother and her grandson sat in front of me for the most part of the game. One thing I miss when broadcasting games, is hearing the great quotes from spectators. The boy, who must have been four or five (I am really bad at aging someone), had some great drop-in quotes throughout the game. One of my favorites was, "Grandma, they're not even hittin' the ball, they're just standin' there with the bat." Kids do say the darndest things. One of the first things the boy mentioned when he sat down was, "Grandma.....how come it's all girls playin'?"
Lewistown has two baserunners in the top of the fourth inning, with Vanessa Smith reaching on an error, and Rachel Bull hitting a single. Smith would be called out at the plate for the third out on Bull's basehit.
North Fulton went down 1-2-3 in the fourth inning, and the Indians led off the fifth inning with a pair of singles. Wilkinson and Kalie Bainter each rapped base hits to start the frame. With one away, Katie Dinkheller hit into a 5-3-2 double play to end the inning.
Megan Baker was the only Wildcat to reach base in the fifth inning, on a walk. Lacie Henderson, Lewistown's starting pitcher reached on an error in the outfield in the bottom of the fifth. The Wildcats plated their only run of the game in the bottom of the sixth inning. McKown had a base hit, went to second base on a Morgan Miller single, and then scored on an RBI single by Meredith Beoletto, to make it a 3-1 game.
The two extra insurance runs were added by the Indians in the seventh inning. Rachel Bull hit another single, after spraying about four foul balls into the bleacher area near the North Fulton dugout, and would come around to score on a 2-run single by Rhodes. Jordyn Rhodes finished with 3 RBI. Bainter scored the fifth run, after reaching on a fielder's choice.
Trying to rally in the bottom of the seventh inning, Stefanie Martin led off the frame with a single for the hosts. She was taken away with a 4-6-3 double play, led off by Lewistown 2nd baseman Brittany Keeler, who flipped it to shortstop Kalie Bainter, who made the perfect throw to 1st baseman Whitney Wilkinson. Kelsey Hanlin then reached on a walk, and Renee Slater hit a single, before McKown popped out to centerfield for the final out and to end the game, with the visiting Lewistown Indians prevailing, 5-1.
After getting my notes ready for the postgame talks, I headed over near the Lewistown dugout. I overheard some parents talking, with one of them saying someone had been texting scores from this game to the Canton (WBYS) radio station. I interjected, that it was me. WBYS was carrying the Metamora/Canton baseball game. The woman who made the comment happened to be Rachel Bull's mother, and her husband was in the fields listening to WBYS and hearing those updates.
Bull, was one of the three Indians softball players that I would interview on video. Those interviews will be available sometime Tuesday. The other two interviewees were Whitney Wilkinson and Kalie Bainter, as well as head coach Joey McLaughlin. The Indians are now (7-6) overall and (2-2) in the Prairieland Conference.
I took the cross country way back from Fairview, going through Ellisville, and coming out on Route 41 between Bushnell and Prairie City. One of my most memorable postgame trips came this very route. When I was broadcasting Bushnell-Prairie City/Avon football games on 104.7 WLMD, I was making the trip back from Peoria Heights with my color commentator, Tony Davis (softball coach at Lowpoint-Washburn).
As we were driving through the very country roads that Friday night, a very ominous light was in the overhead skies. We kept looking at it and joking, and it seemed almost surreal, like something out of a movie. It is hard to explain, but the light was just moving in a very unreal direction. The funniest thing is, we pulled off to the side of the road, and took pictures with our cell phone cameras (and this was when cell phone cameras first started popping up). After a few minutes, and some nerve-wracking moments, we discovered it was a Medi-Vac helicopter.
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