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COACHES CORNER 7-13-09
I just wanted to drop a note to congratulate our team on the progress so far this year as a team. As all teams have their ups and downs our STING 94 team has continued to steadily grow and improve as a team this year on the field. Not many other teams in Minnesota continue to have the success as all of our teams in the Sting organization do. As with our 94 team we have made it to the Championship game on Sunday at every tournament we have entered both 14U and 16U except one where we lost 2 games by one run playing up at the 16U level. We have molded ourselves to be a very competitive tournament team who comes ready to play and has a take no prisoners attitude on the field. Our defense is our strongest point where we do not make mistakes that cost us big games, DEFENSE wins Championships and we have set ourselves up well to finish our season. Just as a recap here is our finishes this year.
Tournament Champions - 16U USSSA Qualifier
Tournament Champions - 14U Flower Power Iowa
Tournament Runner Up - 14U ASA/USA Qualifier
Tournament Runner Up - 16U ASA Ringneck South Dakota
Tournament Champions - 14U ASA/USA State
We are geared up and ready to finish our season at the 16U Elite State Tournament this weekend and then travel to represent Minnesota at the ASA/USA Nationals in Marietta, Georgia the last week in July.
Our quick summer season is coming to the climax and I have enjoyed seeing you all grow as players.
Have fun and let's enjoy the rest of the season together!!!!!
Thanks,
RICK
STING 94
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COACHES CORNER 6-12-09
The 2009 summer season is upon us, and I am very happy to see our STING 94 team back together again. With only one practice together this year it was nice to see us step onto the field and play as a team. I can tell everyone is very happy to be together again because it showed at our first tournament, the Flower Power in Des Moines Iowa.
We stepped on to the wet field after a rain delay to start the day and lost our first game, we stayed positive and rebounded ending up 3 -1 in pool play on Saturday. We then went 4 - 0 in bracket play on Sunday and dominating the Championship game winning 9 - 0 to the team we lost to in our first pool play game. Each game we continued to progress as a team with everyone gaining confidence with each win. Our pitching crew was very strong and defense played stellar this weekend committing very few errors. After a slow start with the bats the big surprise was how our offense turned around by the end of the day Saturday. Some weekend highlights were Homeruns hit by Abby Whritenour (1), Kelsy Kannegiesser (2) and a Grand slam in the Championship game from Kayla Wenner. We had the following players with multi hit games over the weekend, Cassie Santiago, Kelsey Jarrett, Jordin Novak, Ari Hipolito, Whritenour, Kannegiesser and Sam Lashomb who also after 21 plate appearances reached base safely 17 times. We went on to outscore our opponents 38 - 7 to win our first tournament of the year.
Great start all, and stay focused on paving our way to Nationals!!!!
Thanks,
RICK
STING 94
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COACHES CORNER 1-19-09
Well our first night at Velocity Sports was a success and we had 14 of 16 players in attendance to receive training on Sprint Mechanics from the sports trainer. This was followed by 90 minutes of hitting and fielding. Our next session will be on Sunday January 25th, and this session will be strictly 90 minutes of hitting and fielding with the fielding more structured on the large grid turf at Velocity.
During the training session we had a parent meeting where we discussed our teams tournament schedule and expenses of the team to play next summer. We are very happy to announce for our returning players there will be a reduction in cost this Summer season over last year on the initial fee to play. Everyone was in agreement with the tournament schedule that is now posted on our website calendar. Our commitment is to play a full 16U Elite schedule this season in League and Tournaments, only playing 14U once to attempt to qualify for the ASA/USA Junior Olympic National Tournament.
Also, during our meeting we discussed fundraisers and are setting our goal to raise over $5,000 for our team to help with miscellaneous expenses to cover the costs of running this very successful team. We are also working very diligently on securing our hotel rooms for our out of town tournaments in Iowa and South Dakota, and we will be sending out information for families to reserve their rooms soon. I also have just started to work on designing some new spirit wear for the players and parents to wear this upcoming season and will have it ready for everyone to check out at an upcoming Velocity training session in February.
Thank you for all of your support.
RICK
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COACHES CORNER 1-6-09
I hope everyone had a safe and happy Holiday season this past couple of weeks, because it is now time to put our great 2008 season in the past and bring in what will hopefully be a excellent 2009 season for our STING 94 team.
The STING 94 started 2009 by entering the first 16U qualifying tournament of the year at the Irish Sports Dome which had a very competitive group of teams entered in the field. They were Apple Valley HS, Krush, Mn Stars, Northfield, SnoCatz and the Irish Wolves. When it was all said and done the STING 94 team would be the tournament Champions going undefeated in the double elimination bracket play, and walk away with a USSSA World Series berth. Below are some highlights of our games played as we progressed through bracket play.
Saturday - Game one we would face the 16U Mn Stars in a very tightly contested game with the STING scoring one run in the first inning. This run would come from a walk to Jordin Novak followed with a single from Heidi Mendez and then a double from Kelsy Kannegiesser to move the first run across the plate. In the second inning the STING would get a double from Torry Paulson, but could not score the run and then the Stars would put one up to tie the game. It would not be until the 4th inning when the STING scored what would be the eventual game winner, and it would again start off a walk to Novak. Mendez would sacrifice bunt to move the runner to second and then Novak eventually moved to third on a pass ball, then Kelsey Jarrett would ground out on a fielders choice to score the run from third. STING win 2 - 1, and this would be the first of three wins that would be pitched by Kannegiesser who would throw a two hitter and the only run allowed was unearned during this game.
Saturday - Game two we faced Apple Valley HS who had there senior pitcher throwing for them. This game would be a pitchers duel with the 18 year old Apple Valley pitcher going up against our 13 year old STING pitcher Cassie Santiago. Through the first 4 innings of play there would only be 3 hits allowed from these two pitchers and Apple Valley would strike first in the fourth scoring one run off of two hits. Abby Whritenour would put one in the book as STING's only hit through 4 innings. In the fifth inning we started with a walk to Lauren Makela, and with our bats quiet we would have to try and manufacture a run. Makela would advance to second on a pass ball, then Kayla Wenner would sacrifice bunt to move the runner to third. Paulson would step to the plate and lay down a suicide bunt to score the run from third to tie the game. The game would move to International tie break and the STING would strike first on a big hit from Novak to score the runner from second base. Santiago threw an excellent game, and the STING would decide to bring in Kannegiesser to pitch and close out the game. She would take down the first three batters she faced to end the game with a STING win 2 -1.
Saturday - Game three we faced the Krush who put together a team made up by top players from the 16U Renegades, Forest Lake, Bloomington Gold and others. The first 3 innings the STING would have hits from Whritenour, Kannegiesser and Paulson, but could not string anything together to put a run across the plate. In the Fourth inning we would start with another hit from Whritenour, Novak would sacrifice bunt to move the runner to second base then Mendez would single to score the run putting the STING up 1 - 0 after 4 innings. The STING would score again in the sixth inning off a single from Ari Hipolito, Santiago would put down the sacrifice bunt to move the runner and then Whritenour would double for her third hit of the game but Hipolito could not score from second and would stay at third base. Mendez would step to the plate and get a base hit to score both of the runners, and now making the score 3 - 0. This is where the game would end and Kannegiesser would almost toss the perfect game, striking out 7, allowing no hits and only one base on balls.
Sunday - The Championship Game we would face the Krush once again after they worked there way back through the losers bracket knocking out the SnoCatz to get there. This game would be played out for the entire 7 innings and have no time limit. In the first two innings there would only be one hit from either team and it would be a single from Paulson. Then in the third inning the STING would strike first and never look back in this game. It would start from a single from Makela, then Santiago would hit a double deep that just missed clearing the wall to score the first run and Whritenour would add a single to score the run from second. STING up 2 - 0. The STING would score again in the fifth inning starting with a walk to Wenner, Makela would reach on an error and Hipolito would hit into a fielders choice advancing runners to second and third. Santiago would again get a clutch hit with runners on base scoring the two runs, now making it 4 - 0 STING. We would add one more in the sixth off a bunt base hit from Paulson, a single from Jarrett another hit from Makela to score the 5th and final run of the game. That is where it would end with a 5 - 0 STING win and Kannegiesser would throw another shut out game allowing only 3 hits.
Some other highlights including our 4 games of pool play on Friday and bracket play. In our combined 8 games we played Kannegiesser threw 5 and Santiago threw 3 of the games allowing only 9 runs on 19 hits and striking out 61 batters, while the STING moved 24 runs across the plate on 45 hits on in those same games. Our Big hitters in final 4 bracket play games were Torry Paulson .500, Abby Whritenour .454, Kelsy Kannegiesser .444 and Lauren Makela with .375 and a .545 on base %. Clutch hits came from Jordin Novak to score the final run in International Tie break against Apple Valley to get the STING to the semi finals. Heidi Mendez with two hits in the semi final game knocking in all 3 of the STING runs, and finally two hits from Cassie Santiago in the Championship game knocking in 3 of the 5 runs scored in that win. I can not go without congratulating Kelsy Kannegiesser for crushing the ball out of the park twice in our pool play games on Friday. And a final thanks to Mia Barten for helping out catching for our team during our pool play games while we had three of our catchers that were not able to play on Friday.
What a way to start the New Year!!!! I can see this is a sign of things to come for this team in 2009.
We will see you at our Velocity Training which begins on this coming Sunday 1/11 at 4:30pm.
Thanks, RICK, BOB and DON.
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COACHES CORNER 12-18-08
Well we just finished our last week of Dome ball with our first game vs. Chaska. For some reason we only got to play them one time this session and wish we would have had an opportunity for a second game because they are a very good team. This game was a low scoring pitchers dual through out with only 3 hits a piece for each team, and both teams playing great defense. Neither team were able to put a run across until the fourth inning where Chaska struck first pushing a run across on two hits. The lead did not last long with the STING answering right back in the fourth with a double from Sam Lashomb and Jordin Novak scoring the run on a fielders choice. The game would end in a tie 1 - 1 and the only other hits for the STING came from Torry Paulson and Abby Whritenour. This tie game was pitched by Kelsy Kannegiesser allowing 3 hits with 10 strike outs.
Our second game was against the MN Venom which was the team we suffered our only loss earlier this Dome season. The STING would score one run in the first inning off of no hits, Kayla Wenner reached on a walk followed by Paulson being hit by a pitch. Megan Armstrong would sacrifice bunt to advance the runners then Lauren Makela would push a run across on a fielders choice. The Venom would tie the game in the second inning making it 1 - 1. Then in the fourth inning the STING would load the bases and score a run on four consecutive walks to Makela, Lashomb, Ari Hipolito and Novak. With the bases loaded Heidi Mendez would hit a deep ball to the wall clearing the bases making the score 5 - 1. The Venom could only add one more run to make the final score 5 - 2 and a STING win to end the 2008 season. This game was pitched by Lauren Makela who only allowed 4 hits.
With our 2008 Dome season coming to an end I would like to give you some highlights. The STING 94 ended with a Dome record of 9 - 1 - 2 and the team out scored our opponents 69 - 14. We had 7 players that hit over .350, over .350 were Kelsy Kannegiesser, Ari Hipolito and Kayla Wenner, over .400 were Sam Lashomb, Cassie Santiago, Emily Englemeier and Torry Paulson. Our team had 78 hits from 241 at bats for a team average of .325 and an on base % of .451 for the team. Our defense continued to grow where we stopped many teams scoring chances off of great infield and outfield play. And finally to our pitching staff who combined only allowed 14 runs over 12 games which was a huge contributor to our team wins. The STING 94 teams overall record for the Fall/Dome season's are 21 - 3 - 2 playing up at the 16U level. We have one final tournament coming up January 2nd, 3rd and 4th, so let's come prepared and have some fun. This will more than likely be our last chance to play good competition until our next Summer season.
This was a fun year for the team with a USSSA World Series win, a top 3 finish in the 16U Fall State tournament and finally and excellent Dome season. This year has prepared our players to play at a very high level and make the jump for our next summer season into the 16U Elite level of play as a 14U team. We will plan on continuing our work through the Winter training sessions at Velocity Sports on the fundamentals and strength so we are prepared and continue to play at this higher level.
Enjoy your time off, and have fun playing the other sports you enjoy this Winter.
Good luck,
RICK, BOB and DON
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COACHES CORNER 11-26-08
It has been a crazy week and I am just getting the chance to update you all on last weekends games. In our first game vs. Eden Prairie Black the STING started the first inning with a walk to Sam Lashomb and a double from Jordin Novak to put the first run across. In the second inning Torry Paulson bunted for a base hit and Ari Hipolito doubled to put runners on second and third. Megan Armstrong hit into a fielders choice to the right side of the infield to score our second run of the game. The STING had some excitement in the third inning from a solo homerun over the center field fence by Kelsy Kannegiesser making it 3 - 0 STING. The fourth inning our bats took over with a flurry of 7 hits in a row from Heidi Mendez, Paulson, Kayla Wenner, Hipolito, Armstrong, Kannegiesser and Coley Ries moving 5 runs across the plate. We did not score in the 5th and the game ended with a final score of 8 - 0, STING win. This game seemed much closer than the score showed, and the STING defense had an excellent performance. Twice in the game Eden Prairie had the bases loaded with no outs and we were able to cut down the runners at home to hold them scoreless for the game and Ries pitched this shut out for the STING.
In the second game vs. the Southwest Patriots it would be a back and forth battle for the entire game. The Patriots struck first scoring two unearned runs on two uncharacteristic errors from the STING infield. We were held scoreless in the first and behind 2 - 0. Both teams were scoreless in the second and the Patriots would score one more in the top of the third. In the bottom of the third Lashomb and Cassie Santiago would single followed by a hit from Novak to score a run, then Kelsey Jarrett would get a hit to score the last run of the inning making the score 3 - 2 and the STING down a run. We would hold them scoreless in the top of the fourth and we would start with a single from Paulson, Hipolito would reach on an error advancing Paulson to third. Armstrong again hit into an RBI fielders choice scoring Paulson and Kannegiesser would single to score our final run of the inning putting the STING ahead 4 - 3. In the 5th the Patriots would tie the game and that is where it would end with the time limit ending the game 4 - 4 and Santiago pitched this tie game for the STING.
With only one week left in our dome season the key is to remain focused, we have a couple of tough games lined up to end the year on which will be great way to measure what we will need to work on in our upcoming Velocity training in January.
See you Sunday, RICK
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COACHES CORNER 11-26-08
Just catching up on last Sunday's games at the Dome. Our first game was another very tight match vs. the TC Twisters with great pitching from both sides and in the first inning the Twisters struck first going up 1 - 0. Scoring would not happen again until the fourth inning where it would start with back to back walks to Coley Ries and Cassie Santiago, Kelsey Jarrett would then lay down a sacrifice bunt and they would try for the force at 3rd base which was to late and all the runners were safe. Heidi Mendez would put the ball in play but the Twisters would take the force out at home. With one out and our bats quiet this game, we decided to try to manufacture a run. Santiago would score on a delayed steal from 3rd to tie the game, and our second run of the game came from a pass ball which Jarrett would score. The game would end after 5 innings with a STING win 2 - 1 and in this game the pitching combo through a one hitter with Kelsy Kannegiesser throwing 4 innings and Santiago would finish the 5th.
Game two vs. Holy Family the STING bats took charge right away to put up 4 runs in the first. It started with back to back singles for Ari Hipolito and Sam Lashomb, Kayla Wenner singled to score the first run and Kannegiesser would double to clear the bases. Megan Armstrong then reached on an error and Santiago would drop down a suicide bunt to score the final run of the inning. In the second Jordin Novak would single to start the inning, but the STING were held scoreless and Holy Family would put up one making the score 4 - 1 STING. The third inning Lashomb would reach on an error, Kannegiesser walked, Armstrong would single a run in and Ries hit a sacrifice fly scoring two runs on the overthrow. The fourth inning Jarrett would single, Mendez walked, Novak would reach on an error, Abby Whritenour would run out a dropped 3rd strike and Hipolito would triple to clear the bases and then Lashomb would double in the fifth run of the inning making the score 12 - 1. In the final inning Wenner and Kannegiesser would hit singles, Armstrong would hit into a fielders choice scoring a run, Ries would single a run across then Santiago would single to score the final run. The game ended 15 - 1 STING win behind the pitching of Santiago and Ries for the one hit win.
Just a reminder that we do not have games scheduled on next Sunday the 30th. This was a great day with two wins pushing our record to 7 - 1 for our Dome season. Our after game discussion was about how to represent ourselves as a team on how we should act, hustle, warm up and work together on and off the field. This is just not about having top talent on our team and wins, it is how we represent ourselves as a person, a team, an organization, and your High Schools.
Players - I would like to add that respect is earned on and off the field and do not forget why you are here playing the game you love??? It is because your parents support you on and off the field, so you should especially treat them with the respect they deserve!!! Because without their love and support you may not have had the chance to play this game we all love so much.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!
RICK
MN STING 94
"USSSA World Champions"
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COACHES CORNER 11-19-08
Last Sunday at the Dome the MN STING suffered their first loss to the MN Venom 0 - 3. Behind their strong pitching the STING were only able to muster up 3 hits from Ari Hipolito, Torry Paulson and Abby Whritenour. We had runners in scoring position in 3 of the 5 innings and we just could not get that big hit to score any runs, the Venom scored their 3 runs off 7 hits.
In our second game vs. Eden Prairie Red we were able to score first and never look back. In the first inning one run would cross the plate with Coley Ries reaching base on a walk, Lauren Makela would single and Cassie Santiago would single to drive in the run. In the second inning we would have two additional hits from Heidi Mendez and Kelsey Jarrett, but we could not produce a run. In the third inning Paulson would single and then steal second base, Lauren Makela would single in the run making it 2 - 0 STING at the end of three. In the fourth inning we would score again off a single from Hipolito and a double off the wall for Jordin Novak to score the run. The final inning of play Whritenour would reach on an error, Kelsey Kannegiesser sacrifice bunted and both runners reached base safely, Paulson hit into a fielders choice to advance the runners and Ries would ground out to score a run. Makela would step to the plate and get her third hit of the game scoring the final run of the game making the final score 5 - 0 STING. We have to mention the pitching tandem for this game, Kannegiesser who struck out 9 of 10 batters she faced and Santiago would finish the last two inngs of the game allowing only one hit for the win.
Some things to take away from this Sunday is our infield is rotating well and covering a lot of ground. Our outfield still needs to work on hitting the cuts, hustling to the ball and knowing where the runners are and where they are going. Our pitchers are getting a chance to work on their new pitches and see where they need to improve in game situations using these pitches. Overall we are making the correct adjustments in this Dome season and this season is for the coaching staff to evaluate and prepare our Winter training at Velocity Sports. Our goal this winter is to work hard on correcting any weaknesses we see and prepare to play in the Elite 16U League next summer season.
Great job so far through the first half of the Dome season going 5 - 1, and the new players are mixing in well together to form a strong team.
Thank you and see you Saturday at our team fundraiser.
RICK, BOB and DON
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COACHES CORNER 11-10-08
What a difference a week makes, last Sunday we were warming up outside before our games with temps in upper 60's and then to this Sunday with temps barely reaching 30 degrees and snowing. It was nice to move inside and play some games in the warm Dome and get out of the first real blast of cold air.
Our first game vs. Eden Prairie Black the STING 94 jumped out to an early one run lead in the first inning that began with a walk to Cassie Santiago. Santiago advanced to second on a pass ball, then Kayla Wenner drove her in with a single to the outfield making the score 1-0 after the first. The STING would score again in the fourth inning starting with a single from Sam Lashomb, Santiago would ground out advancing Lashomb to second. Jordin Novak singled to score the run, Wenner would walk and Ari Hipolito singled to drive in the final run of the inning making it a 3-0 lead. The fifth inning started with a singles from Heidi Mendez, Abby Whritenour and Kelsy Kannegiesser which drove in the first run. Lauren Makela would ground out to score the second run of the inning and then Torry Paulson would reach on an error to score our third run of the inning. Eden Prairie would answer back with two runs in the fifth putting the STING up 6-2. The STING would add one more in the sixth off a single from Lashomb, a walk to Santiago, Novak would advanced the runners on a fielders choice and Wenner would ground out to the right side to score the run. This 7-2 win would come behind strong pitching from Coley Ries and Santiago.
In the second game vs. SW Patriots we started with back to back walks to Lashomb and Santiago followed by a singles from Novak and Mendez to put two runs across in the first inning. The second inning began with a single from Whritenour, Kannegiesser would walk and Paulson would single to drive in the only run of the inning making the score 3-0. The STING would not score again until the forth where they broke the game open. Wenner would walk to start, Hipolito would push bunt to advance the runner and reach base safely and Mendez also followed with a nice bunt and reach base safely. Kelsey Jarrett would single to right scoring two runs and Megan Armstrong would single to score our third run. Kannegiesser would single a run home and finally Makela would sacrifice fly to left field to score our fifth and final run of the inning, STING up 8-0. In the final inning of the game the STING would add 2 more runs with a singles from Paulson and Lashomb, and a double (which could have been a homerun on a fenced field) for Novak to clear the bases. This 10-0 win would come from a strong pitching outing from Kannegiesser and Santiago.
These two wins keeps the STING undefeated so far in our Dome Season bringing our record to 4-0, and there is always things to work on even when winning. In this weeks after game meeting we discussed the importance of looking ahead and watching the base coaches for your signals to go or stay. Remember it is the coaches responsibility to send you or signal you to stay at a base, and the coach is always watching what is happening on the field and has the best view to make the decision. As a player all you have to do is execute what the coach is signaling and if a play is made and you are out, again that was the decision of the coach to take that risk. We always want to stay aggressive when it comes to our base running as a team.
Great games this week and take the momentum into next week!!!!
Thank you, RICK, BOB and DON
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COACHES CORNER 11-3-08
Well our Dome season began this past Sunday, and I can not believe the 68 degree weather we had. It was nice to be able to have the team warm up outside of the dome and enjoy the beautiful weather for a while.
Our first game against Maple Grove (Twisters) was a very tight game to the finish. We had 4 scoreless innings for both teams with tough pitching, and it took until the 5th inning before the STING would score what would be the only run needed in our 1 - 0 victory. The run came from Ari Hipolito reaching on a walk and then stealing second, Kelsey Jarrett would lay down a sacrifice bunt trying to move Hipolito to third and there was an error on the throw to first scoring the run. We stranded runs in scoring position in most of our innings at bat and just missed that one big hit we needed to break the game open. Our pitching duo for the game was Cassie Santiago and Emily Engelmeier who through a combined 1 hitter for the victory.
Game two vs. Holy Family took a different tone with the STING bats coming alive. The game began on a triple from Kelsy Kannegiesser followed by a hit to third from Lauren Makela, Kannegiesser would score on the play to home and Makela would reach and advance second base safely on the throw. Makela stole third and would score on a Tory Paulson sacrifice fly, the inning ended with a 2 - 0 STING lead. The second inning began with Engelmeier being hit by a pitch, Kayla Wenner, Hipolito and Heidi Mendez would all single, Jordin Novak doubled, Abby Whritenour reached on an error which then Makela would drive in our fifth and final run of the inning, STING lead 7 - 0. The following inning began with a string of hits from, Paulson, Sam Lashomb, Santiago and Engelmeier. Wenner would walk and Mendez drove one deep to score our forth run of the inning on the sacrifice fly, STING lead 11 - 0. That is where the score would end and our pitching duo for that game was Kannegiesser and Makela throwing a combined 2 hitter in an excellent outing.
It was a great start winning two out of the gate, and we expect to see stiffer competition as the weeks move on. Players remember what was discussed after the game, rotations on defense. Outfield know where you need to be on back ups, think second play and anticipate the ball. If you receive the ball, know the situation and make the play. Cut offs should also be lining up and yelling for the ball, and the base where that second play may happen that player should be barking instructions to the cut off. Stopping the extra bases is critical as we play up at 16's & 18's, and the team with the least mistakes usually wins the game.
Keep up the good work, and if you have a chance with this beautiful weather to get out and take a few cuts or work on fielding it may be your last chance outside.
Great job!!!! RICK, BOB and DON
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Coaches Corner - 9 - 25 - 08
We had a beautiful day for our games last Sunday in Elk River Minnesota. The Sting 94 started their day as the only undefeated team going into the 16U Fall State Qualifier. Our first game of the day we would face the 16U Woodbury(Shields) team who came into the tournament with only one loss. The Sting 94's started the game by putting up the first run with a hit from Emily Englemeier and then Kayla Wenner would single to score our run. Both teams would remain scoreless until the 4th inning where the STING would put together a string of hits to put some runs on the board. This inning started with Englemeier being hit by a pitch followed by a walk to Wenner, Ari Hipolito would single to load the bases and Kelsey Jarrett would single to score the first run of the inning. Abby Whritenour would reach base on a fielders choice pushing a run across and then Megan Armstrong would single deep to score our final two runs of the inning, putting the STING up 5-0. In the final inning of play Coley Ries would reach on an error, Kelsy Kannegiesser walked and Lauren Makela would single to score a run and Sam Lashomb would ground out and push the final run of the game across for a STING win 7-0 and making our Fall record 7-0. The Woodbury bats were kept at bay from the combined pitching of Ries and Engelmeier.
Our second game would be against the Northern Extreme who we have faced in two very tough close games before winning one and losing one. We knew going into this that it would be another tough fought game and it lived up to the billing. The STING would score first once again with a hit from Englemeier and Wenner knocking her in to go up 1-0. Both teams pitched tough the STING had Kannegiesser pitching 3 scoreless innings and Cassie Santiago pitching to finish and would allow a run off a home run for the Extreme to tie the game in the final inning. Kannegiesser would re-enter to finish the game and we would go to International tie break to settle this game, with both the STING and the Extreme scoring the first inning. In the second inning of International the STING would have two runners in scoring position with two outs, we had a deep fly ball to right from Santiago and it would be hauled in to end the inning. We would come very close to scoring but could not get a run across and the Extreme would score in that inning to win the game 2-1. There was solid defense played in this game by both teams and a very exciting way to end the Fall Qualifier going into State this weekend.
We had a great run going 7-1 and now being named the # 1 seed for the Fall State Tournament. We have worked hard as a team for these wins and will continue to work this week to prepare for the State Tournament.
EXCELLENT JOB and GOOD LUCK at State!!!!!
RICK, BOB, and DON
MN STING 94
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Coaches Corner - 9 - 18 - 08
Rain, Rain, Rain was the word of the day, and what a miserable day for some fastpitch softball. Well that did not stop the STING 94's from coming out and putting a damper on the two undefeated teams we faced, pardon the pun.
The first team we faced was the Crow River Raiders in which we won the ball roll and chose to hit first, which paid off right away. With the wet weather the STING were able to score first and put up two runs in the first inning with Sam Lashomb and Cassie Santiago scoring. The Raiders answered back with one making the score 2-1 STING after the first. In the Second inning Megan Armstrong reached on a walk and worked her way around the bases to score on a pass ball. Kelsy Kannegiesser reached base safely and also worked her way around the bases to score on a bunt from Lauren Makela. The opponent put up another in the bottom of the second to make the 4-2 STING. In the 3rd inning we were able to score 2 more runs from a single from Kayla Wenner, Ari Hipolito singled to score the run and Hipolito would eventually score on a pass ball. Again the Raiders answered back with two runs now making the score 6-4. In the final inning Jordan Novak would single, Sam Lashomb would walk and from a single from Santiago would end the game with a final score of 7-4 and another STING win.
In the Second game vs. the Renegades the rain kept coming down and the players were soaked. As Don put it "the other teams were huddling under tarps and tents to try and stay dry, and the STING just stayed out in the rain and stayed focused on the game". He was correct, we started the game with rain coming down and ended the game with rain coming down even harder and our players just did not care. We started the game with back to back walks to Lashomb and Santiago who both advanced to 2nd and 3rd. Emily Engelmeier would sacrifice the first run across and Wenner would ground out to the right side scoring our second run of the inning. We would hold the Renegades scoreless the first two innings, and the STING would score again in the second. We started with a single from Abby Whritenour, and a walk to Armstrong, Novak would single to put the first run across. Kannegiesser would reach on an error scoring the second run and then Lashomb would ground out the right side to score our third run of the inning. In the 3rd inning the Renegades would put up one making the score 5-1 STING after three. In the final inning of the game Kelsey Jarrett reached on an error, Whritenour walked and both advanced. With first base open our batter ran on the dropped third strike which scored a run, and Novak would ground out to score our final run. The opponent also put up two more, and the STING would come out with a 7-3 win making them the only undefeated team left at the 16U level.
We have great momentum going into the Qualifier weekend, and we still need to stay focused and work hard to prepare for next Sunday.
Congratulations to ALL on the great job they have done so far this Fall season.
RICK, BOB and DON
MN STING 94
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Coaches Corner - 8-25-08
The Minnesota STING 94 go 2 - 0 on first week of 16U Fall Ball.
We had a beautiful first day of Fall Ball in Waconia MN where we played both of the Southwest Patriots teams. In our first game vs. Patriots RED team in our 5 innings of play came out on top 3 - 0 for our first win. This game included some great hits along with aggressive base running to produce our 3 runs.
In our second game vs. the Patriots BLUE team the STING 94 team scored first and never looked back. We were able to reach base on some solid hits and then were able to capitalize with some huge hits with runners in scoring position to win 7 - 0.
The re-occuring theme for both games were solid pitching from Kelsy Kannegeisser, Coley Ries, Emily Engelmeier and Cassie Santiago and solid defensive play with a couple of very difficult run saving catches in our out field from Lauren Makela and Jordin Novak. The STING 94 team was able to stop any scoring chances from these two teams to end our day 2 - 0.
We will have an optional hitting practice on Wednesday at 6:15 for those who would like the extra work. We will also have our regular scheduled practice on Thursday at 6:00, see calendar below for details.
Thank you,
RICK, BOB and DON
MN STING 94
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Coaches Corner - Minnesota STING 94 USSSA 13U Open World Series Run...
I first want to say what an awesome job ALL the players on the team did to put us in the situation to win a USSSA World Series Championship. I also want to thank ALL the parents on this team who have supported their daughters in this great sport of fastpitch softball. Both the players and parents time and dedication to the sport has given ALL of them the enjoyment of seeing their daughters come together as a team and win a Championship. I am very, very proud of the entire team on their play this past week in St. Louis Missouri. I would also like to thank ALL involved from the USSSA organization and the umpires and especially to Joe a St. Louis UIC for spending the extra time to explain and giving me a crash course in the USSSA rule changes from what I am used to from an ASA rules state. I would also like to thank Midwest Sports Productions for the great job they did, I was very impressed by how they ran this tournament.
Game # 1, Pool Play Tuesday July 15th vs. the Arkansas Angels
This game started quick for the STING 94 team with a single from Cassie Santiago who then stole second base. Sam Lashomb walked and on a pass ball both players advanced to second and third. Abby Whritenour grounded to the right side of the infield to score the first run of the game and on another pass ball Lashomb scored our second run. The Angels answered back with a run in the second inning making it 2-1 STING. The game stayed scoreless until the 6th inning when Lashomb doubled, Morgan Nybo singled and Torry Paulson singled to drive a run across the plate. Then on a base clearing triple from Ciara Rivera made the score 5-1 and that is where it ended with the first of many STING wins.
Game # 2, Pool Play Tuesday July 15th vs. the Roselle Illinois Rampage
This game had a different tone to it then the first game and we came out a little flat. However we did score first in the second inning on a double from Tory Paulson, then a fielders choice for Kelsey Jarrett to advance the runner to third. Ciara Rivera hit a deep sacrifice fly to score Jarrett from third, Sting lead 1-0. The lead did not last long because the Rampage put up 4 runs in the third inning on two hits and two errors which was uncharacteristic for our team in the tournament. The STING went to work to peck away at the lead and in the fourth inning it started with a double from Abby Whritenour and a single to the outfield from Paulson to score Whritenour from second. Jarrett singled and Rivera singled to load the bases and then on a pass ball Paulson scored from third making it 4-3 for the Rampage. Our defense tightened up not letting a run score for the rest of the game. Then finally in the 7th inning the Sting finished their come back with a lead off double from Cassie Santiago and a single from Sam Lashomb to score Santiago from second. Then the wheels fell off for the Rampage with Morgan Nybo being hit by a pitch, then a pass ball to advance the runners to second and third. With Paulson coming to the plate who was 3 for 3 in the game the Rampage chose to intentionally walk her to load the bases bringing Jarrett to the plate. Jarrett had a very tough at bat fouling off a couple of pitches to keep her at the plate, her discipline at the plate drew the STING a walk to bring in the winning run in the bottom of the 7th inning. STING win 5-4.
Game # 3, Pool Play Wednesday July 16th vs. the Dejavu team from Missouri
This game the STING bats came alive jumping out to an early lead in the 1st inning. Cassie Santiago and Sam Lashomb started with back to back singles then Abby Whritenour singled to score Santiago from Second. Torry Paulson hit a triple to clear the bases then Coley Ries singled to score Paulson from third Kelsy Kannegiesser also added a hit where the inning ended with a STING 4-0 lead. In the second inning Lauren Makela reached base safely then stole 2nd. Ari Hipolito singled to score Makela from 2nd and Santiago doubled to score Hipolito from second, Lashomb also doubled and tried to stretch it into a triple where she was put out. Lashomb's hit did score Santiago from second and the score now 7-0. In the 3rd inning the hits continued with a single from Whritenour, double from Paulson, Kannegiesser drew a walk, Kayla Wenner Doubled, Makela drew a walk, single from Hipolito, single from Santiago, Lashomb drew a walk, Morgan Nybo singled, Whritenour singled for the second time in the inning and Ries hit a Sacrifice fly to bring in the final run. This game ended early with a run rule in the 3rd inning 16-0 STING win.
STING # 1 seed out of pool play to start double elimination bracket play no time limit, 7 inning full games
Game # 1, Bracket Play Thursday July 17th vs. the Columbia Nails from Illinois
This game was a battle back and fourth defensively, many great plays from both teams in this game. However the STING scored first in the 3rd, Lauren Makela reach base safely on an error, Ari Hipolito singled and Cassie Santiago sent a deep sacrifice fly to left field which ended up scoring two runs on a missed cut off throw, STING Lead 2-0. Again the pitching and the defense for both teams held each other scoreless until the bottom of the 6th inning. The STING came to bat where Abby Whritenour drew a walk, Morgan Nybo singled then Kayla Wenner hit a BOMB to right field which cleared the fence for a 3 run homerun where the game ended with a 5-0 STING win.
Game # 2, Bracket Play Thursday July 17th vs. the Indiana XPlosion
Again the STING scored first with single from Cassie Santiago and a double to the wall from Sam Lashomb to score Santiago from first, STING up 1-0. It remained scoreless until the 5th inning where Coley Ries and Kelsy Kannegiesser started with back to back singles and Ari Hipolito hit into a fielders choice to 3rd base where they got our lead runner. Santiago singled to load the bases and Lashomb singled to score Kannegiesser from 3rd, Whritenour was hit by a pitch to score Hipolito and Kayla Wenner hit into a fielders choice scoring Santiago. A pass ball moved Whritenour and Wenner into scoring position and Ciara Rivera singled to score both. Inning ended at a 6-0 STING lead. The XPlosion would add one run in the 6th inning to end the game with a STING win 6-1.
Game # 3, Bracket Play Friday July 18th vs. the Monkey Heads from Indiana
The game was a real battle against a very tough team that some had said had a good chance to win the tournament. This was a very low scoring game in which the STING got the first run across the plate in the 1st inning on back to back hit by pitches for Cassie Santiago and Sam Lashomb. Abby Whritenour hit into a fielders choice advancing the runners into scoring position and Morgan Nybo reached on an error to move the first run across the plate, STING lead 1-0. In the second inning Coley Ries singled and Ciara Rivera grounded into a fielders choice to advance Ries to 2nd base, Ari Hipolito then singled and Ries scored from 2nd to make the score 2-0. The Sting's defense would not bend in this game and with 5 Monkey Head hits they were not able to get a run across the plate, STING win 2-0.
Game # 4, Bracket Play Friday July 18th vs. the Oaklawn Ice from Illinois
This game was the turning point for the STING where I felt as a coach if we could get past this game we had a good shot at going all the way, a win here would guarantee the STING a spot in the FINAL 4. Once again we put up the first run in the 1st inning, Ari Hipolito singled and Cassie Santiago sacrifice bunted the runner to second. Sam Lashomb singled to advance Hipolito to third and Whritenour reach on an error scoring the first run of the game. In the second inning Kayla Wenner tripled to start the inning and Kelsey Jarrett singled to score Wenner from third, STING lead 2-0. The 3rd inning we would be able to break this game open with a single for Hipolito, then a triple from Lashomb, Torry Paulson singled and Kayla Wenner hit her 2nd triple of the game clearing the bases and then Morgan Nybo reach base safely on an error to score Wenner from third, STING lead 6-0. In the 5th and final inning Paulson singled and Jarrett walked, Ciara Rivera came bat and drove a hard shot to the gap in right center for a double to drive in the final to runs to win 8-0 in the 5th inning on the run rule. This game our defense again would not bend, we were able to turn 3 double plays this game each time their runners reached base they could not move them.
Game # 5, FINAL 4 Bracket Play Saturday July 19th vs. the Kentucky Cobra's
The Cobra's in 6 games put up 49 runs and at this point in the tournament the STING only gave up 5 total runs. Our pitching was strong through the entire tournament up to this point from all 3 of our pitchers so we were wondering how we would match up in this game??? The STING was the visiting team and when we first stepped to the plate we got to their pitcher right away with back to back to back singles from Ari Hipolito, Cassie Santiago and Sam Lashomb to score the first run of the game. In all the excitement of scoring the first run one of our players, Kayla Wenner jumped up in the dug out and hit her head on the corner. The game had to be stopped to attend to her wound and she was taken to the emergency room, (she need 5 staples to close the wound). The team gathered before we resumed play and it was discussed in our huddle that the STING needed to win this game for Kayla, she deserved to be there. The game resumed with runners on first and third and Torry Paulson hit a single to score our second run of the game. We had two more hits from Morgan Nybo and Kelsey Jarrett to add one more run making it 3-0 in the top of the first inning. In the second inning the STING started where they left off in the first with a singles from Kelsy Kannegiesser, Coley Ries and Ari Hipolito to score a run. Santiago hit a sacrifice fly for the second run and Lashomb singled our third run of the inning in, STING lead 6-0. The third inning started with a walk to Ciara Rivera and a single from Nybo, Jarrett grounded into a fielders choice to move the runners into scoring position and Kannegiesser also hit into a fielders choice to score our 7th run of the game. We would not score again until the 5th inning where we shut the door on the Cobra's. Abby Whritenour walked, Rivera singled and Nybo had her 3rd hit of the game to score Whritenour. There was a pass ball to move the runners to 2nd and 3rd and Jarrett singled to drive in two more runs making the score 10 - 0 where it ended with the run rule and the STING taking some huge momentum into the Championship Game.
Game #6, World Series Championship Saturday July 19th vs. the Kansas City Jazz
The Jazz was a spunky team who worked their way back in the losers bracket playing in 6 games between Friday and Saturday to get to us in their 7th game in 2 days. One note: Kayla Wenner came back from the hospital with her new shiny staples and it would be crucial later in the game on her return. The STING won the toss and were home team, and this game was a pitcher duel to the finish which neither team scored a run in the first 2 innings of play. The Jazz struck first in the top of the third on a hit batter, two singles and an error to put up 3 runs. We were not getting to their pitcher so we decided to try to work on their tired defense from playing so many games. Kelsy Kannegiesser reached base safely on an error and then Lauren Makela drag bunted her way safely to first base. Both advanced on a pass ball, and at the next at bat Makela was stretching her lead on second base and then it happened the Jazz made their first mistake. They tried to throw behind the runner at second base, so we sent our runner at 3rd to score and Makela was on her way to 3rd and the throw went passed second base to also score Makela. At the end of the third Jazz 3 - STING 2. The Jazz was shut down in the top of the 4th inning and the STING came to bat. Cassie Santiago singled to the outfield and on an over throw to the cut off took second base, while on second we were going to bunt to advance her but the pitch was out of the zone. We noticed the Shortstop did not move for a rotation so a straight steal was called, Santiago went for the steal on the next pitch and was safe at third, and on the throw the shortstop missed played the ball and there was no back from the outfield and Santiago scored easily from third tying the game at 3 a piece. With the STING coming to the plate in the 5th inning it started with a single from Wenner who advanced to second on a pass ball, Kannegiesser grounded out to first base which advanced the runner to 3rd. Coley Ries singled to the outfield which scored the go ahead run, STING 4 - Jazz 3. Here is where the note at the beginning of the paragraph comes into play. In the 6th inning the Jazz first batter singled her way on base and the second struck out for the first out. The next batter hit a deep fly ball to right center field that looked like it was going to be extra bases, but Wenner tracked it down and made the catch then she threw to 1st base to catch the runner on the force out for the last out of the inning. This happened again in the 7th inning, with one out and a runner on first the Jazz batter hit another very deep fly ball to left center field that should have burned just about any other player. But once again Wenner was in full stride and leaped and caught to ball near the fence to stop the runner from advancing. The final out of the game came from a familiar Kannegiesser strike out, and the players erupted charging to the mound in celebration on winning a WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP. It truly was an amazing fete coming from behind to snatch this game away from a tearful group of Jazz players.
I have to add that our pitching staff Morgan Nybo, Cassie Santiago and Kelsy Kannegiesser pitched flawlessly in this tournament to help with the 9 wins we accomplished over the 5 days in the Missouri heat which was in the upper 90's with a heat index in the 100's. Santiago pitched in two games, Nybo in three and Kannegiesser in 4 games plus some innings to close out games. The three combined for 85 strikeouts which was an average of 9.5 a game, and allowing only 9 base on balls, then finally the magic number of our opponents only scoring at total of 9 runs over the 9 games. What a fantastic job by the whole crew.
Other notables, congratulations the Kelsy Kannegiesser tournament "MVP", Morgan Nybo Tournament "Outstanding Pitcher" and finally to Ari Hipolito, Kayla Wenner, Sam Lashomb and Cassie Santiago for making the "All Tournament" team. I wish we could have given everyone on the team an "All Tournament" award because everyone deserved one after this week of fastpitch softball.
I would like to end by saying good luck this week at the AFA 16U National Tournament in Oakdale, keep up the momentum!!!!!
Thank you again for all your support,
RICK
MN STING 94
"WORLD CHAMPIONS"
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Coaches Corner...End of the year update -
Our last game of the 2008 summer season came to an end on last Friday night at the AFA 16U Nationals in Oakdale MN going 3-3 playing up at that level. We had a good run this year and because we ended so late Friday night I did not get a chance to say what a pleasure it was coaching this group of girls this summer, I had such a good time with this group. I also did not get chance to thank the coaching staff, Becky Ahlbrecht and Brett Nybo for all the time they put into this team helping develop them all into such a great group and helping them become USSSA World Champions. Without these two and their hard work starting last fall through Dome ball and our winter workouts at Velocity Sports, I could not have done it without you!!!
There are a couple of others that I would also like to thank, Brenda Rivera for the time and effort of taking on the Team Manager position and working on keeping our financials straight and cutting all the checks we needed to keep everyone happy this year. Another to thank is Camie Kannegiesser for taking on the Scorekeeper position and for all the time she put in keeping the books for all of our games this summer season. These two really helped me as a coach focus on what is the most important thing, and that is the players on the team. The time and effort of these two saved me so much time on the off the field stuff, I could just focus on the games. There are many other parents on the team that gave their time and homes to help when and where they could to ease the burden and make this a better team. I also want to thank my wife Patty for putting up with me through the entire process (I can be a pain) not really??? :-)
This was a tremendous year for this group of 13U fastpitch players, we ended our season going 39-8-3 at the 14U Elite level and 8-6-1 at the 16U level capping it off with a USSSA World Series Championship. Who would have known that when we first came together for our summer season in May at our Car Wash fundraiser that our year would come together and end so fast, it seems like it was just yesterday we were washing and drying those cars and running around in a gorilla suit. This year we will all have memories that we will hold for the rest of our lives and share over and over again the fun we had as a team this past summer.
I want to finally thank ALL the players on this team for their commitment to become better people and players, your sportsmanship showed on and off the field. Continue to lead by example as a player, as a student and for your families. And never forget you will always be known as "WORLD CHAMPIONS"!!!!! Enjoy that title for all the hard work you have done to get there.
Thank you again for all your support!!!
RICK
MN STING 94
"WORLD CHAMPIONS"
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Souix Falls Links
Souix Falls Hotel Information
Ringneck Tournament Link
Map Link From Hotel to Falls Park –– only 2 miles
Coaches Corner - 7/2/08
The STING had 6 great games over the last week to get the team ready to play in the Ringneck tournament over the 4th of July weekend in Sioux Falls, SD.
TUESDAY 6/24 - We started this evening of league play against the Hopkins Royals team, and it was a back and forth game all the way through. The STING scored first in the second inning with a walk issued to Abby Whritenour and hits from Ari Hipolito and Coley Ries' single to drive in the first run. The Sting scored another run in the third with a lead off hit from Kelsy Kannegiesser and a double to the fence from Kayla Wenner. The Royals answered in the third with 4 runs on 2 errors to take the lead 4-2. Moving to the forth inning the STING bats were still hot and continued to put up runs. The inning started with a walk to Torry Paulson, Sam Lashomb singled and Morgan Nybo singled in a run. Abby Whritenour and Kelsey Jarrett both walked then Coley Ries singled in two runs to make it a 5-4 STING lead. The Royals did score in the last inning with the game ending in a tie 5-5. The second game of the evening was against Moundsview where the STING jumped out to an early lead in the first inning. Torry Paulson started with a walk, Sam Lashomb singled and then Morgan Nybo hit into a fielders choice to advance the runners into scoring position. Abby Whitenour hit a deep sacrifice fly to score a run and Ari Hipolito singled to drive in our second run, STING lead 2-0. Moundsview answered with one run in the second. Third inning we put up three runs on Kayla Wenners ground rule double and a hit from Lauren Makela and some heads up base running on a delayed steal to get in a hot box to score Kayla from third and reach second base safely. Sam Lashomb hit a triple to score the run and Morgan Nybo singled to drive in our third and final run of the inning STING lead 5-1. Moundsview added one in the forth inning and the STING added one in the 5th on a single from Kayla Wenner, sacrifice bunt from Lauren Makela and an RBI single from Torry Paulson with the STING victory 6-2.
THURSDAY 6/26 - This was our only night where we had games scheduled to play the same team twice in a night. The STING traveled to Orono to play the MN Max in a double header. In the first game of the evening the STING jumped out to an early lead and never looked back by putting up the first run with a single from Ari Hipolito then advancing to second on a pass ball, then a RBI single from Morgan Nybo. In the second inning the STING started with a triple from Kayla Wenner and an RBI single by Kelsy Kannegiesser. Kelsey Jarrett singled and Ciara Rivera singled to drive in the second run of the inning, STING lead 3-0. In the forth inning we started with a triple from Sam Lashomb and then her scoring when the cut off was missed on the throw in from the outfield. Morgan Nybo and Kayla Wenner walked, then Kelsy Kannegiesser had an RBI single followed by a single that drove in two runs for Kelsey Jarrett, STING lead 7-0. We put up one more in the fifth by Ari Hipolito beating out a dropped third strike and then Cassie Santiago doubled to make the final score 8-0. In the second game of the evening it was a much tighter game with no scoring until the fifth inning from the STING. Our only two runs came from a single by Kelsey Jarrett, Coley Ries sacrifice bunt to move the runner then an RBI single from Ciara Rivera who the stole second base and our final run on a single from Lauren Makela. The game ended with a 2-0 win for the STING, and a great combined evening from our pitching staff to hold the Max scoreless in two games.
TUESDAY 7/1 - Our final night of games before we travel out of state for the Ringneck tournament. Our first game of the evening was against the Forest Lake Rangers where it was a pitchers duel through the first four innings and the first runs finally scored in the fifth. Forest Lake chalked up the first two runs in the fifth inning to go ahead 2-0. But the game was not over yet and with time running out the STING came to their final at bat in the sixth inning. Ciara Rivera singled to start the inning then Ari Hipolito tripled to score the first run. Torry Paulson had an RBI single, Cassie Santiago singled, Sam Lashomb walked and Morgan Nybo put the ball in play and scored our third and final run. Our pitching shut the door and our late inning flurry ended with a STING 3-2 victory. In our second game we faced the TC Twisters where we again scored in the first inning and never looked back. The game started with three walks for Kelsey Jarrett, Kayla Wenner and Ciara Rivera then Coley Ries had a two run double to start the STING out 2-0 in the first. We scored again in the third inning with a single from Morgan Nybo, then our first run in the third by a triple from Abby Whritenour. Kelsey Jarrett grounded out to the right side of the infield to score our second run from third, STING lead 4-0. Then in our final inning of play started with a single from Lauren Makela and back to back walks for Torry Paulson and Cassie Santiago. With bases loaded Sam Lashomb hit a base clearing triple to deep left field where the scoring ended with a STING 7-0 victory.
Again I would like to mention what a great job our pitching staff did over these games. We had no single pitcher throw a complete game and all worked well to share innings going undefeated over this six game stretch. In those 6 games we only allowed 12 hits, and 10 walks with 36 strike outs as a combined crew. Great job moving into the post season stretch, where we will play up to 30 games over the next 3 weeks.
These last couple of weeks I can see how we have come together as a team with everyone contributing in clutch situations, and having a lot of fun. I want our pitchers throwing every day off possible to get your pitch counts up for this heavy schedule, and to all others take some fielding and get to batting cages to take some cuts whenever you can. Work on the batting adjustments the coaching staff has worked with you all on, because it is time for all of you to take it to the next level and produce excellent results in our post season play.
Thank you for your support, and we will see all of you in South Dakota!!!!
RICK
MN STING 94
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Coaches Corner - 7/11/08
We are on the road to our post season play which will include the MMFL State Tournament this weekend followed directly by the 13U USSSA World Series in St. Louis and then finally finishing our summer season at the 14U AFA Nationals. Leading up to this weekend we had an excellent 10 days of fastpitch softball, starting with a trip last weekend to the Ringneck tournament in Sioux Falls South Dakota and ending the last week of league play 3-1.
Ringneck game # 1 - The STING started with a Friday 8:00pm game against the South Dakota Spitfire where we fell behind early 2-0 in the first inning. The Sting held the Spitfire in the top of the second and when we came to the plate the bats came alive. The inning began with a double from Kelsey Jarrett, double from Ciara Rivera, double from Cassie Santiago, single from Sam Lashomb and single Morgan Nybo with the inning ending and the STING putting up 6 runs to go ahead 6-2. In the third inning the momentum continued for the STING starting with singles from Coley Ries and Rivera then a double from Ari Hipolito and a single from Santiago. Lashomb walked followed by a single from Nybo, Abby Whitenour cleared the bases with a triple, Jarrett singled and then the game winner was hit in on a double from Kayla Wenner. The game ended on the 12 run rule with the STING winning 15-2. Morgan Nybo threw this complete 3 inning game allowing one hit with 6 strike outs and no earned runs.
Ringneck game # 2 - This was against the Omaha Quakes Red which was a very strong team. This was a low scoring game that the STING was able to get on the board first in the second inning. Morgan Nybo started with a single and Torry Paulson sacrificed her into scoring position, the Kelsey Jarrett came through with a double to the right center gap put the STING up 1-0. The Sting would not score again until the 4th inning with a hit from Sam Lashomb followed by a triple from Abby Whritenour putting across the first run. Paulson once again put down a bunt where Whritenour advanced to home on the throw to first base. The Sting were up 3-0 and that would be all we would need for the victory behind strong pitching from Kelsey Kannegiesser who pitch 6 innings allowing only one hit with 13 strike outs.
Ringneck game # 3 - Was against the South Dakota Fire & Ice where once again the STING scored first and never looked back. Our first runs came in the second inning starting with a single from Ciara Rivera, Kelsey Jarrett was walked and Coley Ries singled to score Rivera and then Ari Hipolito hit into a fielders choice scoring Jarrett from 3rd to end the inning with a 2-0 lead. In the 3rd inning we had a slap hit from Sam Lashomb followed by a triple from Morgan Nybo scoring the first run, then Abby Whritenour singled to score Nybo and then stole second base. Rivera then singled to right field scoring Whritenour ending the inning with a 4-0 lead. In the 4th Hipolito reached on an error, Cassie Santiago grounded into a fielders choice advancing Hipolito to 2nd, Nybo Singled to score our only run of the inning now up 5-0. In the 5th inning Rivera singled, Jarrett walked and Lauren Makela singled to load the bases. Hipolito Doubled to score 2 runs and then was followed up with a double from Santiago to score 2 runs ending the game with a run rule of 8-0. Cassie Santiago pitched this game complete allowing no hits with 7 strikeouts.
Ringneck game # 4 - This game was against the MN Rosemount Irish where the Sting again scored first with a triple from Cassie Santiago and then a single for Sam Lashomb. Rosemount answered back putting up 3 runs in the first and another in the second to go ahead 4-1. The STING did score one again in the 3rd on a double from Lashomb followed by a sacrifice fly to left from Abby Whritenour to score the run to cut their lead to 2 runs. Then in the final inning Kelsey Kannegiesser started with a double, we had a fielders choice from Coley Ries and Kayla Wenner to put across a run cutting it to 4-3. Then the STING dug deep to hit starting their come back with two outs, Ciara Rivera singled and the Cassie Santiago drove one to deep left field clearing the 200' fence to go ahead 5-4. The STING added another run with back to back walks and double from Writenour to put the STING ahead 6-4. The Sting needed that insurance run because the Irish put up one more run and left one stranded on 3rd due to a great catch deep in the gap to right center field by Lauren Makela to end the game. Combined pitching from Nybo and Kannegiesser for the win.
Ringneck game # 5 - Game against MN Lakeville Lightning the STING jumped right out of the gate putting up 4 runs in the first inning. It started with 3 singles from Ari Hipolito, Cassie Santiago and Sam Lashomb, followed by back to back fielders choices from Abby Whritenour and Torry Paulson to each score a run. In the 2nd inning there were two walks to Santiago and Lashomb and Morgan Nybo put the ball in play in which two runs scored on a throwing error from the Lightning, STING lead 6-0. Adding one more run in the 5th inning were again Santiago and Lashomb hit back to back doubles to make the score 7-0. The lightning did add one in the last inning to end with a STING win 7-1. Combined pitching from Kannegiesser and Santiago for the win.
Ringneck game #6 - Game against Omaha Quakes Black, where the Quakes struck first in the second inning scoring 4 runs on five hits. The Sting pecked away at the lead scoring one in the bottom of the 2nd with a single from Abby Whritenour, Ciara Rivera advanced runner to second base and Kelsey Jarrett singled to score the run. In the fourth inning Rivera singled, Kayla Wenner reached on an error and Coley Ries drove in the second run to make the score 4-2 where it ended with the STING's first loss of the tournament. Combined pitching from Nybo and Kannegiesser for the loss.
Over all an excellent tournament showing for the STING 94 team ending with a 3rd place finish out of 32 teams and going 5-1 for the tournament outscoring our opponents 40 -11 and coming up one game short of the championship.
I have to add this and give a congratulations to the following players who hit over .450 for the tournament, .467 Abby Whritenour, .467 Morgan Nybo, .471 Sam Lashomb, .529 Cassie Santiago and the team Stinger for this tournament was Ciara Rivera who batted .538. The entire team came together and did a fantastic job both on Offense and Defense to get us our 3rd place finish. We plan on taking this momentum into our State Tournament this weekend in Eden Prairie.
Thank you for your support,
RICK
MN STING 94
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Coaches Corner - 6/26/08
This past week we played some fantastic fastpitch softball starting with our league games.
Tuesday June 17th - We played our double header in Maple Grove with two games against the TC Twisters and OMGAA Storm. In the first against the Twisters the Sting jumped out to an early lead producing 3 runs from hits from Ari Hipolito, Cassie Santiago, Lauren Makela and doubles from Morgan Nybo, Sam Lashomb and finally a monster hit from Kayla Wenner which would have been out in any regulation field ended up a ground rule double due to hitting it to far into a grass repair area which ended up putting two runners back on base that had scored. We added one more in the 5th with a hit from Ari Hipolito and then stealing her way around the bases. The game ended with a 4-1 victory. The second game vs. the Storm was another tight game through 6 innings and the Storm prevailed 2-1. We did have hits from Sam Lashomb, Kelsey Jarrett, Cassie Santiago, double from Morgan Nybo and a Triple from Torry Paulson which produced our only run.
Thursday June 19th - We played in Lakeville with two games against the SW Area and the Lakeville Lightning. In the first game against the SW Area the Sting scored first and never looked back. In this game we produced 12 runs on 11 hits with the hits coming from Kelsy Kannegiesser, Morgan Nybo and Torry Paulson. We had the following produce two hits during the game, Coley Ries, Kayla Wenner, Ari Hipolito, Cassie Santiago and then one of our players that was 3 for 3 for the game and that was Kelsey Jarrett. The game ended with a 12 - 0 win for the Sting. In our second game we matched up with the Lightning and they came out and put up one in the first inning. The Sting answered with a triple from Sam Lashomb and Morgan Nybo with a single to tie it up a one a piece. Lakeville did come out strong in the second and took the lead back making it 2-1. When the Sting came to the plate I could see we were much more aggressive. We started the inning with a double from Abby Whritenour and back to back singles from Kelsey Jarrett and Coley Ries. Ciara Rivera was hit by a pitch then Lauren Makela had a fielders choice to bring a run across the plate. The inning continued with a hit from Torry Paulson, a fielders choice for Kelsy Kannegiesser which also brought a run across and finally a hit from Ari Hipolito which ended our scoring putting up 5 runs to take the lead 6 -2. We added to our total scoring 5 more runs and more hits from Morgan, Abby, Kelsey, Ari, Kelsy, Sam and Ciara Rivera ending the game with an 11-2 victory. I have to congratulate Kelsey Jarrett for going 5 for 5 for the night, GREAT JOB!!!!
Need to thank all our players for making adjustments this week at the plate it really showed, our team in our four league games this week at the plate went 41 for 90 which was a .455 average for our team. That really helped us as we moved into tournament play at the 16U level at the Edina "Cake Eaters" tournament the weekend of the 21st and 22nd.
Saturday June 21st - The Sting 94 started pool play against Edina 16U and again took an early lead putting it up 2 runs in the first inning on some very powerful hitting. In that inning Ari Hipolito walked and Cassie Santiago hit one deep off the fence in left to bring our first run across the plate, then Abby Whritenour took one deep of the wall in left center for a triple to bring in our second run. In the second inning Kayla Wenner walked, Torry Paulson and Coley Ries had back to back singles and Kelsy Kannegiesser had a sacrifice bunt to score a run. In the third inning we did not produce any runs and the score was still 4-0. Moving to the fourth inning Sam Lashomb was walked, Morgan Nybo singled, Kelsey Jarrett singled, Kayla Wenner walked and Torry Paulson had a fielders choice to score a run. We put up 2 in that inning and that was where the score ended with a 6-0 win. Our pitching duo for that shut out game were Morgan Nybo 4 innings and Coley Ries 2 innings. In our second game we faced Columbia Heights 16U where again the Sting jumped out in the first inning putting up two runs on a single from Cassie Santiago and a triple from Sam Lashomb who then crossed the plate on a pass ball. There was no scoring from either team in the 2nd and 3rd innings. In the fourth inning the Sting mustered up another run on back to back walks and then a hit from Morgan Nybo. Moving into the fifth inning the Sting started with a triple from Torry Paulson to the fence then a single from Coley Ries who advanced to second on the throw home. Ciara Rivera sacrificed to move Ries to third and Kelsey Jarrett put a fly ball to right field to score Ries from third on the sac fly. Columbia Heights did scrap a couple of runs in the 6th inning to end the game with a 5-2 victory for the Sting. Solid pitching from Kelsey Kannegiesser who struck out 11 of the first 12 batters in their line up. Our final game of the day vs. Apple Valley was a tight scoring game with good pitching from both sides. Apple Valley scored first in the third inning and held us scoreless into the fifth. In the fifth inning Morgan Nybo singled then Abby Whritenour sent one to the wall for a triple which tied the game up. Kelsey Jarrett put a ball in the air to the outfield which scored Whritenour from third moving the Sting ahead 2-1. Apple Valley answered back scoring an unearned run on an error to tie the game up and that is where it would end in pool play with a tie. Cassie Santiago pitched 4 innings and Coley Ries finished with 2 innings which both pitched strong in this low scoring game.
An excellent start for the Sting 94 going undefeated in pool play at 16U and winning the pool to be the # 1 seed going into Sunday.
Sunday June 22nd - The Minnesota Sting 94 faced the 16U Minnesota Lightning. The Sting started slow and let them take advantage of that on some aggressive base running that caught us off guard in the first which produced their first run. From that point both teams would battle back and forth with good pitching and some great defense with both teams not scoring until the fifth inning. In the fifth the Sting worked hard at the plate starting with a single from Morgan Nybo, Abby Whritenour reached base safely and Kelsey Jarrett singled to right to bring across the Sting's first run to tie the game. The inning continued and Lauren Makela put the ball in play in the air in the infield which dropped in and scored the go ahead run and shifted momentum. Then in the bottom of the fifth Lakeville scored 2 runs to win 3-2 to knock the Sting out of the tournament. A couple of plays to mention were a few great catches from our outfield from Lauren Makela, Kayla Wenner and Abby Whitenour the wind was blowing very strong out there, NICE JOB to shut them down in some innings for us.
Not a bad finish to the weekend and we thought as a coaching staff that it was a game we should have won. We are making some adjustments for our upcoming games which we feel will be able to put us in a better position to make some plays on defense.
Great job, and Ringneck is only a couple of weeks away.
Thank you,
RICK
MN Sting 94
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Coaches Corner - 6/18
Games on Thursday 6-19-08 at Lakeville South HS
WOW, time is flying bye and 2 weeks have past since my last post. I will try to get everyone up to speed on the events that have transpired starting two weeks ago.
First we finally got our first games played in the Elite League without being rained out. :-)
Games Tuesday June 10th - We started that week at Bielenberg Complex in Woodbury. Our first game was against the NSP Polars which started with a few missed scoring opportunities in the beginning of the game to a strong ending where our bats took over. The Sting were able to put up 4 runs in the 5th off of back to back hits from Sam Lashomb's double, Kelsey Jarrett's single, Abby Whritenour's double, Morgan Nybo's double and Kayla Wenner's single which ended with our first victory 4-0. Our second game of the night was against the Woodbury Royals where the Sting played a solid defensive game along with our offense. The Sting scored 8 runs scattered throughout the game with hits from Ari Hipolito, Torry Paulson, Kelsey Jarrett, Morgan Nybo, Kayla Wenner and multiple hits from Cassie Santiago. The final score ended with an 8-1 victory.
Games Thursday June 12th - These games were played up North in Ham Lake at Lions Park. Our first game of the evening was against Soderville where the Sting scored first and never looked back. Our runs were knocked in from hits from Coley Ries, Morgan Nybo, Abby Whritenour and multiple hits were collected from Ciara Rivera and Cassie Santiago. We also had strong pitching from Morgan Nybo holding the opponent to only one hit for the game. Our score ended with a 5-1 victory. Our second game of the evening was against Forest Lake where we just could not put our hits together at the right time to produce runs. We did have hits from Sam Lashomb, Kayla Wenner, Torry Paulson, Abby Whritenour and Coley Ries. Forest Lake played tough defense to give the Sting there first loss in league play 4-0.
Eagan "Down and Dirty" tournament - Saturday - The Sting 94 team had a great run in this tournament going undefeated until the Championship game where we placed second against some stiff competition. We opened the tournament with a game against the Rosemount Irish Gold team in which the Sting were down 2-0 going into the second inning. We scored our first run in the second and then the bats came alive in the third inning to produce 4 runs off of 5 hits from Cassie Santiago, Coley Ries, Kayla Wenner, Morgan Nybo and Ciara Rivera to put us ahead for good. We finished with our first victory with a score of 5-2. Our second game was against Forest Lake where the game was low scoring behind good pitching from both teams. The Sting jumped out to the lead 2-0 early in the game and just could not muster up any more runs and with a defensive miscue at the end of the game allowed Forest Lake to tie the game where it ended in pool play at a tie. Our final game on Saturday was against the Woodbury Royals where we had a lot of hits and just could not string them together to produce a lot of runs. It was a game of good pitching and good defense for both teams. The Sting hits came from Ari Hipolito, Sam Lashomb, Morgan Nybo, Kayla Wenner, Kelsey Jarrett, Ciara Rivera with multiple hits from Torry Paulson. In the final inning Ciara Rivera reached base safely then Lauren Makela sacrifice bunted her into scoring position, the bench became very loud & vocal as Torry Paulson fought off a number of pitches but eventually hit the game winner to win the game 1-0.
Eagan - Sunday Bracket Play - We started our Sunday against the host team of the tournament the Eagan Wildcats. The Sting bats started a little slow and then in the second time through the order we started to put the bat on the ball. Our hits that game came from Ari Hipolito, Sam Lashomb, Coley Ries, Abby Whritenour, Kelsey Jarrett and multiple hits from Cassie Santiago with a Double off the fence which cleared the bases in the late innings to put the game out of reach with a 7-1 final score and a place in the final four. The second elimination game we faced the NSP Polars where the Sting bats exploded and we scored runs in every inning, where all batters in the line up had a hit. Our multiple hitters for the game were Ari Hipolito, Cassie Santiago, Sam Lashomb, Abby Whritenour and Coley Ries. The final score ended with a 8-3 win which advanced the Sting to the Championship game vs. the OMGAA Storm. This was a tough fought game by both teams on the field where the Sting jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the third inning only to have the Storm answer back with 4 runs. In the 5th inning we had our opportunity to put some runs on the board to tie the game up which was silenced by a close call at home which did not go in our favor. The game continued with strong pitching from both teams and the Storm added one more to end the game with the Sting's first loss of the tournament 5-2. We had a great run with 5 wins and 1 loss, GREAT JOB TEAM!!!!
Sting 94 took 2nd place at the Eagan Down & Dirty
I would like to add that we are starting to gel as a team, and have worked hard on our defense. This weekend there were to many unbelievable defensive plays in the field to mention, and all did a fantastic job. I would also like our thank our deep pitching staff for an awesome tournament as a group even with some injuries. Kelsy Kannegiesser was able to pitch her first inning of relief since being out from Memorial weekend, Cassie Santiago pitched as much as she could with a sore shoulder, Coley Ries stepped in to pitch some great relief innings. Finally to Morgan Nybo for towing the load for the weekend pitching innings in 4 of the 6 games of the weekend. When this group is all healthy it will be fun to see what we can do.
Thank you,
RICK
MN STING 94
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COACHES CORNER - 6/3/08
No Practice today---games on Thursday 6-5-08
We have had a couple of active weeks in tournament play at the 14U and 16U levels. I am very pleased with our progression so far this season starting with trip to Iowa for the "Gauntlet" 14U tournament where we finished tied for 3rd place. This was our first summer outing as a team, and as Memorial Weekend usually brings us was interesting weather. Cold weather Saturday in sweatshirts and then Sunday blistering hot and humid with severe thunderstorms rolling in for the Championship game. Overall I felt we competed well with very little practice time as a team, and it was fun to play the other teams from other states. The highlight of the tournament was our extra inning game against one of Iowa's strongest teams the WDM Panthers which ended in a 1-1 tie in which we had our opportunities win. With a little more practice we will not let opportunities like that get by us. The hotel accommodations and hospitality were great for our families and I would recommend to other teams to check out Iowa USSSA fastpitch tournaments.
Our second outing for tournament play was at the 16U level in the "Lady Irish" tournament this past weekend. We started Saturday with a big loss 0-12 in our first game in the morning against the strongest 16U Irish team in the tournament. Our goal after that loss was to improve each and every game a little at a time, and we were able to achieve that goal. Our next game we played the Terminators from Canada and it was a great defensive game for the STING, keeping it to a 1-1 tie for a final score. In that game our coaching staff felt that we should have won that game, and we had more opportunities than our opponent to do that. Our last game on Saturday was against the South Dakota Fusion, where our bats started to come alive. I felt this was a turning point for our team in the fact that we were starting to pick up our confidence level knowing we could compete against the 16U club teams. When it was all said and done we had 10 hits scoring 6 runs for our first victory with a 6-3 win.
Returning on Sunday we started our first game vs. the Winnepeg Lightning, this was a game we had to really work to get our runs across the plate. Was started slow again allowing the Lightning to score 4 runs in the bottom of the first inning. We then battened down the hatches on our defense and did not allow another run the balance of the game. I was excited to see the energy on our bench even after giving up those runs, I could see our players did not lose any confidence and came up to bat and put up a couple runs to cut the lead in half. We continued to move runners and score a run here and there to finally end up taking the lead 5-4 in the last inning with a double that scored two runs from Ari Hipolito, and then our defense holding them for the victory. Our final game of the tournament was against the second Irish 16U team in the tournament. With strong pitching and good defense we were able to stay with them the entire game. The STING was able to score first and then to have it tied in the following inning. Again we were able to move a run across the plate and tried to hold on to our lead, only to have it taken away in the last inning on a two run double. We suffered our second loss 2-3 and were out of the tournament.
All in all for our first tournament playing up we learned a lot about what our team is made of. After a very tough first game loss to having 24 hits, 20 singles and 4 doubles and putting up 14 runs in the next 4 games for our first 16U adventure was a GREAT success. With the determination of this team and having a couple of injuries, once we have our entire team healthy, WATCH OUT.
We have two team STINGERS this week who both hit .500 in the "Lady Irish" tournament, they are Ari Hipolito and Sam Lashomb. Combined they had 9 hits, 8 singles and a double with 5 RBI's. GREAT JOB this weekend!!!
Always remember players....."Score first...Then never look back"!!!
Thanks,
RICK
MN STING 94
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Coaches Corner - 5-28-08
Practice Thursday is still on for 6:00pm, and it has been moved to Velocity Sports in Burnsville. They are letting us use the facility today from 6:00 - 8:00pm. I am planning on having a player meeting for the first half hour to re-cap the past weekend with the players. Then we will be running 2 cages to work on bunting and hitting and then working on a compressed field to go over fielding situations.
See you at 6:00.
I will also need some help at practice with some drills if a couple of parents could volunteer to help. Just contact me if you can be their, thanks.
Also, see the following for game times for this upcoming weekend. We will be playing at Erickson fields in Rosemount check Directions for maps. It is very close to the Rosemount Dome we played at last winter.
Our start times are as follows...
Saturday 8:30am, 11:30am and 2:30pm
Sunday 1:00pm and 4:00pm, if we win the pool there would be a championship game to follow.
One final thing to mention, the Elite game schedule is posted on the website. We already have a conflict with our first evening on Tuesday June 3rd, and we are trying to re-schedule for a different night that week. I will let you all know as soon as I can on that.
Thank you, RICK
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Coaches Corner - 4/30/08
Well our last winter workout was completed at Velocity Sports last Sunday and they worked hard on core strengthening. I could see by the sweat on our players foreheads after the workout, and I am sure a few were sore the following days. I want to thank all of our Sting players and the other players outside of our organization who participated in our winter training, it was good to keep a bat and ball in our hands over the past months.
As for our upcoming events, we have our car wash if weather permits on Sunday 5/4 followed by our 50-Inning game which should be a lot of fun. We will have a pot luck planned to follow for all the families to relax and get re-acquainted before our upcoming season. Then on 5/17 & 5/18 we will be hosting our second annual "Sting the Ball" tournament for our organization in which our players and families will be working at to help run a very successful tournament. The 94 team coverage will be on Saturday at 7:15am to 3:15pm on field 5, 6, 7 & 8 which are the outer fields.
Our summer season has officially begun, we had our player meeting in which we covered things like: Why did you come to the Sting? What do you want out of this season? What is in it for you as a player? and What do you as players think our team goals should be this summer? We also discussed our teams general rules and what we are planning to do that will be new the year which included what we have learned at Velocity Sports this past winter, and then finally going through our finalized summer tournament schedule.
We are going to ease into the season with only a few practices until the High School season comes to an end for those on our team playing for their schools. Most players will be free and clear starting the week of May 18th as long as they are not pulled up or playing in Varsity playoffs. That being said we are working hard to secure a couple of scrimmages, one prior to our trip to Iowa and one the week after we return so we are ready to start League play the first week of June. I have been told that the Elite League scheduling has begun and as soon as I get that information we will post it immediately for you on our website calendar.
See you Sunday, and "Let the summer season begin"
Thank for your support,
RICK
MN STING 94
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Coaches Corner - 5/5/08
Happy Cinco de Mayo!!!
I am sure today we are all tired and a little sun burned after a hard day Fundraising. What a successful day of events, and the weather turned out to be great for the entire day. At the car wash it started out a little slow and then really picked up for a great surge to end of that event. I think we ended up washing around 45+ cars in the 3 hours we were working. The girls had a blast and did a fantastic job getting the cars to roll in, especially the girls who wore the Gorilla suit. I think doing the "Worm" in a Gorilla suit really attracted the attention of the people driving by, and it was pretty funny seeing the girls take turns in it. Also, thank you to the parents who stepped in to help when we had so many cars lined up, sometimes 4 or 5 at a time.
The second event was the 50-Inning game, we started out strong and as the event name implies going 50 innings was a challenge. It was interesting to see the girls work on different skills during the event as we changed challenges every 9 outs each team had. Some of things they worked on were, bunting to a specific locations, hitting to the opposite field, fielding rotations etc... Becky, Brett and I learned a lot from this event and will work up some practices plans for our next time together. All in all the funds raised by these two events for a trip to Nationals was well worth it.
But the Best part was
we went to Jarretts....
we went to Jarretts....
and had an awesome time.
Once all was completed we had a team dinner hosted by the Jarrett's, thank you for bringing the pizza to the car wash and opening your home to all for dinner. It was a great chance to get the families together to relax, converse and have some fun. The girls however stayed competitive as usual playing games like Guitar Hero, Ping Pong and 4-Square in the driveway. Boy I still wish I had that much energy to go all day like that. It was also fun to see them all hanging out in the hot tub, and for the two brave ones who jumped into the un-heated pool (Kelsy and Sam) got a little shocked from the cold. It was pretty funny for all who watched, and the day was an ice breaker for the team, pardon the pun. :-)
We are only 19 days away from our first tournament in Iowa, and we will have little time to practice with the end of High School regular season play and then Sectionals to follow. So we will have to have focused practices and work hard to get us in game shape in such a short time, and the coaching staff knows we can do it. The games times for the tournament will be posted by the end of the week so we will know if we have a Friday night game or not.
I will be sending an email out to you all with practice times prior to our tournament and post them on the website.
PLAYERS - Nice job this weekend, you washed cars and played hard as a team raising money. Now we need to take it to the field for our summer season!!!
Thank you for your support, and we will post pictures as soon as we can from our weekend.
RICK
MN STING 94
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Coaches Corner 4/01/08
The "Day at the Dome" was a huge success and the teams that participated expressed how well it was run and how they had a great time. I would like to thank OMGAA, Forest Lake, Prior Lake, Soderville and the SnoCatz for coming to our day of games. I would also like to thank Rick Busch from the Plymouth Dome and Clark Worthington for putting together the umpire crew. All in all it was just nice to get the juices flowing with some great games early in the season.
For the Sting 94 team we had a very long and enjoyable day of softball, beginning with our 3 games at the dome and ending with a team training session at Velocity Sports. At the dome our team had two wins and one loss in some very competitive games for this early in the season. Through our 3 games totaling 13 innings we had a few multiple hitters to mention, Coley Ries, Cassie Santiago, Kayla Wenner, Morgan Nybo and Tory Paulson.
Our Team Stinger for the "Day at the Dome" is - Tory Paulson who went 4 for 7 at the plate with 2 singles, 1 double and a Triple. Great job hitting!!!!
The 94 team is currently scheduled at Velocity on April 13th at 4:00pm and we have added a couple of games at the Rosemount Dome on April 19th at 6:00 and 7:00pm. As the weather becomes warmer I will be in touch with you all on when we will be moving outside to get a some practice in.
Only 52 days before we are at our first tournament in Iowa!!!!!
I know it is early, and we need to start to focus on finding that fire inside............Set your goals high and work hard on achieving them!!!!!!
RICK
MN STING 94
Note...
We now have a Link to the IA Gauntlet web page and Directions to the fields on our site.
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Coaches Corner 3/11/08
The cold air is starting to break and the summer season is right around the corner. I know many of our players will be playing on High School teams for their first time this year and many of the captains practices and tryouts have already begun. Good luck to you all and I wish you well. Remember to work hard, stay focused because you will have a practice or games almost everyday of the week for your schools. We talked about this at Velocity, how you practice is how you end up playing in the game. Use this time wisely and enjoy playing for your High Schools, ultimately this will help you prepare yourself for the highly competitive summer season with the STING 94 team.
The STING 94 team is only 19 days away from playing live games again at the "Day at the Dome" which will give our team an opportunity for a quick peek on where we are at as a team and what we will need to work on to get prepared for our first tournament the "Gauntlet" in Urbandale, Iowa over the Memorial Day weekend. Our Velocity training has been very successful not only with the professional trainers they provide, but with the help from many other STING coaches, players and parent volunteers in our Sting organization. I would like to thank Steve and Ashley Schnedeker from the STING Elite team, Bob Makela from the STING 92 team, parents and our coaching staff for there continued help with our winter training sessions which will finish at the end of April.
At our parent meeting last Sunday we handed out our finalized summer tournament schedule, please remember to check to see if you have secured your rooms for our out of town tournaments. If you do not have the hotel information please contact Brenda Rivera (team manager) for your hotel confirmations. I would also like to add that if you need to get time off to travel with your daughters to Nationals it will be the week of July 21st through the 26th. Put in your requests at work now so you will not have any issues as it becomes closer.
The next time we will see each other we will be playing a few live games. Our game times are posted for the 30th and I will be sending out an email on what time we will meet to warm up.
See you soon, and keep working hard.
Thank you,
RICK
MN STING 94
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Coaches Corner -- Winter update...
Even though this cold wintry weather is here and it seems like Spring is still so far away..... In no time it will creep up on us and we will be in the full swing of our first summer season together as the Minnesota Sting 94' team. As a team that is 13U eligible we have already made our mark this past Fall season and through Dome ball as one of the top 14U teams in the state.
Our Sting team has already started the steps towards working together over the winter months at our Velocity Sports training, fielding and hitting workouts. Our first 2 sessions have had full attendance and has also been a success with our speed and agility training by professional trainers. We will continue to step up the fielding and hitting drills so we can work harder towards becoming the team we all know we have the potential to be, and to step on the field prepared to play.
We are working on finalizing our tournament schedule for the coming summer season which will include big tournaments in Iowa, South Dakota and here in the Metro area. Our team will be playing a mix of 14U and 16U games this summer to give us every opportunity to push ourselves and gain the skill level needed to perform well at the National level. With our hard work and strong parent support we will continue to remain a very successful team. Becky, Brett and I are very excited with the talent we have on this team and we will work on each individual players strengths and weaknesses to have you all prepared for the game situations you will encounter.
Upcoming events will include continued training at Velocity Sports through the end of April, some fundraising events to be announced and the special event of the "Day at the Dome". This event has 6 very strong 14U teams, Sting 94', OMGAA, Forest Lake, Soderville, Prior Lake and the SnoCatz that will each be playing 3 games on that day. I chose to put this together for all of the teams to get a chance to get some game experience with their newly selected teams prior to starting the hectic summer tournament schedule. The Sting will use this as training to see where we are at as a team and what we will need to work on to prepare ourselves for our first tournament in Iowa over the Memorial weekend.
I will continue to keep you updated on all the upcoming Sting 94' events .
Remember......... "Score first, and never look back"
Thank you for your support.
RICK
MN STING 94'
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December 3rd - The Turkey Tournament and Dome Ball week nine 11/24
Time slipped by last week and I was not able to post about week nine and our Turkey Tournament showing at the 16/18U level. Last weekend we were able to play 6 games over the course of 2 days, ending up with 3 wins and 3 losses. We started Friday morning in the Turkey Tournament against the Irish 18U Wilson team and played a very complete game both offensively and defensively. It was a close game from start to finish and we were able to score first in the second inning, and behind strong pitching from Kelsy Kannegiesser holding the Irish to only 3 hits, that one run would be the only run we would need for the victory. Our score ended 1 - 0 and hits came from Tory Paulson, Cassie Santiago and Jordan Novak. Ciara Rivera with a key sacrifice bunt put a runner in scoring position for Kelsey Jarrett to hit the game winning double to the wall to score the only run needed. We started our second game on the right foot by scoring in the first inning, and we just could not hold on against the 16U T.C. Twisters. This was a close game until the opponent put up four runs in the fourth inning to pull ahead 5 - 3 on 2 errors, and there was not enough time for us to get an at bat again. Overall I felt this was a game we could have won with a little more discipline in the field, more for us to work on in the off season. We did have hits from Jordan Novak, Cassie Santiago and a double from Ari Hipolito to help push our runs across the plate. Then in our final game on Friday against the 16U Wolves our bats fizzled out and did not put up any runs in the 2 - 0 loss, our only 2 hits were provided by Ari Hipolitio and Ciara Rivera.
Coming back Saturday we played against a very strong and disciplined 18U team from Winnipeg Canada, the Angels. We faced our first pitcher that was throwing a lot of movement pitches, and she proved to be to much for us in our 10 - 0 loss which knocked the Sting 94' team out of the tournament. Overall I was very happy with our performance against these older teams with more playing experience. I hope we all walked away from this experience knowing that we will have to work much harder as a team to prepare for next summer with the goal of playing up at the 16U level.
Continuing into our Saturday regular league play we faced the Rosemount dome team our first game and were again back to our team belief, "score first and never look back". The Sting did score first and when the game was all said and done we put up 7 runs in our 7 - 0 win behind a strong outing from Coley Ries and Morgan Nybo on the mound. In our second game we met up with the Moundsview Krush team and defeated them 4 - 0 also behind strong pitching from Morgan Nybo, Kelsy Kannegiesser and Ciara Rivera no runs and only 1 hit in the game. Our multiple hitters for the weekend were, Ari Hipolito, Tory Paulson, Cassie Santiago, Sam Lashomb, Kelsey Jarrett, Jordan Novak and Ciara Rivera.
Our Team Stingers this weekend were Ari Hipolito, Jordan Novak and our DQ winner is Cassie Santiago who was 3 for 5 with 2 walks and hits against the Irish 18U and the 16U T.C. Twisters. Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!
Little did I know that this was going to be our last evening of fastpitch, the weather was not cooperative and we had to cancel our games on our last weekend. Overall our Sting 94' team since the beginning of Fall Ball played in 31 games with a final record of 27 - 3 - 1. Very successful for a group of girls that were brought together with one common goal, the love of fastpitch.
I want to thank our additional girls for playing dome ball with us, it was very fun and exciting to have you all part of this team. I will be in touch by the end of the week with our final additions to our team.
See you all very soon, and thank you for your support.
RICK
STING 94'
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November 19th - Dome Ball week eight 11/17
I was very happy in seeing our team show up focused on the games Saturday night. From our initial talk prior to the games through the last out of the night this Sting team was there to play. We stepped to the plate in the first inning and put 3 runs up on the board, and again never looked back. The Snocats are a very good team to come away with the win as we did. Behind our good defense and pitching we were able to hold our opponents to only 2 runs. While we had 12 hits which included doubles from Jordan Novak, Kayla Wenner and a triple from Kelsy Kanneglesser. The final score ended at 8 - 2 with our first win of the night. In our second game we started a couple of new faces on the mound, Lauren Makela and Ciara Rivera. These two combined threw a great game only allowing 3 hits and 1 run to score for Apple Valley in a 10 -1 victory. We again took charge at the plate putting up 10 hits which included 3 doubles from Kelsey Jarrett, Ciara Rivera, Tory Paulson and 3 triples from Kayla Wenner, Abby Whritenour and Kelsy Kanneglesser. For the night we had 7 players with multiple hits for the evening and 4 players batting 1.000. This was a great confidence builder for us as a team going into our first tournament against some very competitive and older teams.
We have a group of Team Stingers this week - Lauren Makela was 2 for 2 with 2 singles, Ari Hipolito was 3 - 4 with 3 singles, Ciara Rivera was 3 - 3 with 2 singles and a double, Abby Whritenour was 3 - 3 with 2 singles and a triple and finally our "DQ winner" is Kelsy Kanneglesser who was 3 for 4 with 1 single and 2 triples for the evening.
I am looking forward to see how are girls can compete at a higher level at this weekends tournament.
Enjoy your Thanksgiving and we will see you all bright and early Friday at 8:00am at the Dome.
RICK
STING 94'
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November 14th - Dome Ball week seven 11/10
Our team was a little more focused this week coming to the Dome. Again our goal is to score first and never look back and we achieved that. Our first game against Apple Valley the hits started right away. In the first inning we scored 5, second inning 4 and the third inning 5 more. Our pitching did not allow a hit in that first game and almost all of our players reach base safely with a hit in that game. The final score ended with a 14 - 0 victory. In our second game against Bloomington we again scored first and in our 20 at bats we had 10 hits scattered through our line up. The Sting scored 6 in this game and it ended with a final score of 6 - 0, and our pitching did not allow a hit in this game either. This evening overall our team had 8 players with multiple hits, they were Ciara Rivera, Jordan Novak, Lauren Makela, Cassie Santiago, Tory Paulson, Coley Ries, Kayla Wenner and Kaitlin Oakley. Again we must stay focused on our goal to perform well as a team so we are prepared to play in the Turkey Tournament coming up in just over a week.
Our Team Stinger this week is - Kaitlin Oakley - Kaitlin went 3 for 4 with 3 singles over the 2 games, she is also the DQ winner for this past week. Great Job!!!!
Our games this weekend are at 6:00 - 7:00pm so be there at 5:15pm prepared to warm up.
Also, just a reminder for our parent meeting this coming Sunday at 1:00pm. The location and a map is in our directions tab in the main menu, so please check it out.
See you this weekend, and keep up the good work.
Girls Remember - PLAY TO YOUR POTENTIAL, we have yet to see what this team can really do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RICK
STING 94'
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November 6th - Dome Ball week six 11/3
First I want to send the teams condolences to Ari and her family on the recent passing of her Grandfather, the girls were thinking of Ari on Saturday.
This past week we came out with the fire I expect out of our team, in both games we jumped out to a lead and never looked back. In our first game against the Dome team we shut them down at the plate with strong pitching from Morgan and Cassie allowing only 1 hit and not allowing a run. At bat we jumped out in the first inning scoring 5 runs with our team batting through our order. Our hitting this game was highlighted with a Double from Kelsy Kannegiesser and a Triple from Cassie Santiago and ending with the win and the final score of 6 - 0. We moved into our next game against Prior Lake and went to work right away. We again jumped out to the lead with some timely hitting, and two big hits from Ciara Rivera and Morgan Nybo both resulted in Triples and the score ending at 5 - 0 and our second win for the evening. We again had strong pitching from Kelsy and Coley only allowing 1 hit and no runs against. These two victories brings our record to 10 - 2 in the Dome just past the half way point. Moving forward this is what I expect our Sting team to do each of the 4 remaining weeks, come focused to play and be the first team to put runs on the board and never look back. We have strong pitching and defense to put ourselves in a situation to win each week, we must focus at the plate and put runs on the board. As a coaching staff we did see improvement on our bunt situations, this is the key to success in tight games coming down to the wire. This week our multiple hitters were Jordan Novak, Ciara Rivera, Lauren Makela, Kelsy Kannegiesser, Cassie Santiago, Coley Reis and Tory Paulson.
Our Team Stinger for the week is - Tory Paulson - Tory at the plate was 3 for 4 with 3 singles, NICE JOB this week and you will receive the DQ award!!!
We have just passed our half way point in the Dome season and would like to give a little recap on how we as a team have done so far. At the plate we currently have 2 players hitting over .600, 4 of our players hitting over .500 with 4 more currently hitting over .400. We have out scored our opponents 58 - 8 and have a team batting average for our 15 girls at .429 with 87 singles, 17 doubles and 7 triples after a total of 203 at bats. On our pitching side our combined pitching has pitched for 43 innings allowing 21 hits, 19 base on balls and 77 strike outs. They have thrown 758 pitches and of those have thrown 452 strikes and 306 balls. Overall we continue to do well, and we still need to continue to improve as a team and remain focused on getting stronger for our upcoming Summer season.
We will see you Saturday, we play the 8:00 - 9:00pm games this week so we will meet at 7:15 to warm up before the games.
Thanks,
RICK
STING 94'
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October 29th - Dome Ball week five 10/27
Saturday we started off very sluggish and gave away a couple of runs we should not have against the Krush and that resulted in a 2-1 loss which served as a wake up call for our team. With the team focused we had a complete turn of events in the second game against the Snocats, we played a better overall game. We had great pitching, timely hitting and some great plays in the field. We came away with a 3-1 victory to bring our record to 8-2 in the Dome at the half way point. The team had a discussion after the game and both the coaches and players feel it is time to re-focus for the second half of the Dome season. I am very excited about our team agreeing to work harder for our goal to play at the 16/18U level for the Thanksgiving Tournament. This tournament is only 3 game weeks away and we will have plenty of girls to field a team. I will be entering the Sting 94' team sometime this week and will get back to you with information.
This week we did not have a team standout for the Stinger award - A couple of highlights though were Ari Hipolito's diving catch in the out field to end an inning and Cassie Santiago's Triple off the fence in center field to get knock in what was the Sting's winning runs in the Snocats game.
We will see you Saturday at 5:15 for our 6 - 7 o'clock games.
Thank you all for getting back to me on the tournament.
RICK
STING 94'
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October 26th - Dome Ball week four 10/20
Sounds like you all did a fantastic job while I was out of state. I want to thank Brett and Bob for coaching the team in my absence. From what I have been told we out scored our opponents Apple Valley and Prior Lake 15 - 0 behind some great hitting and pitching. I have the stats from the game and we had a slug of multiple hitters. Those who had multiple hits last Saturday were Sam Lashomb, Abby Whritenour, Kelsy Kanneglesser, Tory Paulson, Kayla Wenner, and Ari Hipolito. That was over half the team with multiple hits that were able to make over the MEA weekend games. Great job!!!!
Our Team Stingers for the week were - Kayla Wenner and Ari Hipolito, both girls batted 1.000 and were 4 for 4 each had 2 doubles and 2 singles which makes it a Dairy Queen tie. Both girls will receive a gift card this week for their performance.
Looking forward to being back for tomorrow's games.
RICK
STING 94'
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October 16th - Dome Ball week three 10/13
Our first game Saturday was against the Moundsview Krush team. We opened the first inning by scoring 5 runs with no outs with hits from Megan, Abby, Kelsy and Kayla. I agreed to the 5 run rule so once we scored our 5 we took the field. In the second inning we scored another 4 runs with hits from Jordan, Ciara, Lauren, Megan, Kelsey. It was very nice to see the hits spread around the entire team during this game because our bats went to sleep in the second game. I am not always convinced that playing against a pitcher that was easy to hit helps when in the next game we faced a much better team all around. Our team was only able to muster up 2 hits in the game and score only one run to lose 1 - 2 in 3 and a half innings. We had our opportunities to score and just could not get a bunt down to advance our runners to home. In tight games like this we need to have the discipline to drop a bunt down whenever we need to, so we can advance base runners. That is a very important fundamental that can help win close games like this one. The other Mounsview team came prepared to play a tough 3 inning game, I was surprised at Dome ball that we would have a team like this that takes a game so serious and wished we could have played a full 7 inning game. I am positive we would have had a different outcome. I guess I will chalk this one up in the learning experience for me as a coach and to be better prepared next time we face them. I now understand that we have made our mark as a team in Minnesota and that everyone will be out to beat the STING.
Work hard, be strong because you girls are what everyone wants to be. The best team out there, the STING is the team and organization to beat!!!!!!
Our Team Stinger's this week are 4 multiple hitters for our team - Both Megan Armstrong and Ciara Rivera went 2 for 3 with 2 singles, Jordan Novak went 2 for 3 with a single and a double and our Dairy Queen winner this week is Kayla Wenner who was 2 for 3 with a single and a triple.
Again, I will be gone this weekend and Brett and Bob will be running the team. GOOD LUCK and take 2 from them on Saturday.
RICK
STING 94'
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October 9th - Dome Ball week two 10/6/07
I can not believe we are playing inside a dome when it has been so nice outside, I am sure that will be ending soon enough. It was a pleasant surprise to see that the Snocats were able to find a team to fill their spot while they traveled to Iowa for a tournament. I was very happy we performed so well against the OMGAA team, it was nice to finally get to play them this year and come out with the win. I thought we played a very good first game, we were able to put the ball in play and score runs when we needed too. What I saw was a team that was determined to put runs on the board in every inning we were at bat. We did let them back in the game, and then we were able to add some insurance in our last at bat to secure our 5 - 3 victory. In our second game our bats were very sluggish, maybe it was the heat getting to us in the dome. We had to pull out the Dairy Queen coupons for the first hit and whoever drove them in to score our first run. The winners were Kayla Wenner with the first hit of the rally inning and then Lauren Makela with the bunt for a base hit to score our first run. We ended up scoring 3 runs that inning which was enough to win 3 - 0 against Bloomington. So far it has been a good start to our Dome season, we are now 4 - 0. Our pitching remains strong along with our defense to help keep the runs off the board for our opponents.
Our Team Stinger's this week are - Tory Paulson and Abby Whritenour, Tory was 3 for 4 with 2 singles, a double and 2 RBI's while Abby was 2 for 2 with 2 doubles, a walk and drove in 2 RBI's.
Again as long as the weather holds out we will meet at the Rosemount Field at 4:30pm on Saturday for practice prior to our games.
See you Saturday,
RICK
STING 94'
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October 1st - Dome Ball week one 9/29
I would like to officially welcome our 5 new players that have joined the STING 94' team to play Dome Ball this first session.
Kelsy Kannegiesser – New Ulm
Megan Armstrong – Edina
Jordan Novak – Coon Rapids
Kaitlin Oakley – Eden Prairie
Ciara Rivera – Eagan
It was a good start to our Dome season with 2 victories against Moundsview and the Dome All-star team. We hit the ball well and we played strong defense to hold our two opponents scoreless. I spent the second game in the dug out observing how the girls interact together, from what I saw it will only be a matter of time before all of you settle in to the team. We are all here because they want to compete at a higher level then in Community Ball and everyone on the team contributed to our victories last weekend.
Our pitching was very strong, Cassie, Morgan and Kelsy combined threw 126 pitches. 74 strikes and 52 balls only allowing 4 hits for the evening and no runs.
Our Team Stinger(s) for this week are both Cassie Santiago and Torry Paulson - Both girls batted 1.000 between the two games. Cassie was 3 for 3 with 3 singles and Torry was 2 for 2 with a single and double, she also reached base 2 more times on walks.
We will continue to practice outside prior to our games to continue to work on our fundamentals. We will spend more time on fielding rotation on bunts and back ups next week along with hitting. I will send out an email once we get our game times.
EXCELLENT JOB !!!!!! See you next Saturday
RICK
STING 94'
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September 24th - Fall Ball State Tournament Weekend 9/22 - 23
This one will be short and simple, I am very proud of the Sting 94' team. Even though we ended with a tough loss at State we came together very well as a group and a team. I learned a lot yesterday during that game and I hope our girls have also learned what level we need to continue to work towards to compete for tournament titles in the future. We had many highlights this weekend, all of our girls did a great job hitting and moving the runners when we needed it. Dome Ball starts this coming Saturday and I will work on getting time reserved somewhere to get together as a team in the winter off season. We need to use this time to work on fundamentals and better ourselves as a team for our next summer season.
This weekend I was able to watch at least one game of each of 4 out of 5 the girls that our coming to play dome ball with us this first session. I am excited that we have an opportunity to fill our last 2 remaining spots for next year by watching our team develop over the next 10 weeks in Dome Ball. I will work on making the best decision on skill level and how each of the girls mesh with our team. We are already a tight group, and chemistry is as much a part of winning as skill level.
The Sting 94' team is here to stay, and we have made an impact already in our short time together.
The Team Stinger this weekend - Is our entire STING 94' team, we out scored our opponents this weekend with 36 runs scored to 9 runs against.
Great job!!!!! And let's keep it rolling.......................I will contact everyone in regard to practice this week by tomorrow.
RICK
STING 94'
p.s. Can not go without a shout out to Abby for the 2 home runs she hit this weekend!!!! There are many of our girls that have that potential and we will work hard on bringing that out in them all before next summer.
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September 17th - Fall Ball Week # 4 - 9/15/07
The Sting were scheduled in White Bear Lake to play 2 teams ranked in the top ten this fall ball season. Our first game was against the Southern Minnesota Diamonds, and they had a very strong pitcher similar to what we will be seeing as we progress through next weeks State Tournament. It was a tight battle with strong pitching from both teams. Morgan Nybo came out with the victory and only allowed one hit with 10 strikeouts in the Sting's 2 - 1 victory over the Diamonds. This was the Sting's first game that we had to go to small ball to try to get some runs across the plate. We did fairly well, and we still need a lot of work on placing our bunts to move runners around the bases to get us better scoring opportunities. In the Sting's second game against the Waconia Wildcats our hitting set the tone along with another strong pitching outing from Cassie Santiago, pitching 4 innings allowing no hits with 9 strikeouts. We were making contact with the ball right out of the gate, and Waconia played good defense to keep it close for a while until the Sting started to find the gaps while at the plate. After the hit fest ended over the next 3 innings the Sting ended up out scoring the opponent 11 - 0 ending the game after the 4th inning by the run rule. This will give us great momentum going into the State Tournament next week at Ham Lake and with these two victories will for sure give the Sting at least a top 3 seed for the tournament out of the 86 teams in our fall league.
Our Team Stinger for this week is Sam Lashomb - Sam was 5 for 5 at the plate last weekend with 2 doubles and 3 singles resulting in 2 RBI's. Sam was able to place a slap for a hit to move what was the winning run to 3rd base who then scored on a pass ball to put the Sting ahead for good.
Excellent job by all our girls over these last 4 weeks keeping our Sting 94' team undefeated going into the State Tournament.
I am currently working to secure a field for our practice on Thursday this week, I want to get the girls to practice closer to the weekend for the tournament. I will send a confirming email to all on the time and location. We will still continue to run a split practice with fielding and bunting/hitting prior to the weekend.
Please keep an eye out on the website for our upcoming State Tournament information.
Thanks again,
RICK
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September 10th - Fall Ball Week #3 - 9/9/07
You can feel the Fall weather in the air, we had another beautiful day to play some ball. Our Sting 94' team stays undefeated with two strong victories against 2 opponents that were both 3 - 1 before they met us. Our wins this week came behind some awesome pitching and good hitting to hold both opponents scoreless and the Sting scoring 27 total runs. We had 3 pitchers pitch this week to combine for 2 games that resulted in no hitters. In the first game Morgan and Coley for their combined no hitter threw 10 strikeouts and only allowing 2 walks. Morgan threw an impressive game and was in full command the entire game as Centennial could not catch up to her speed. In the second game Cassie and Coley combined for 5 strikeouts and not allowing any walks in the 3 innings this game lasted. In the Zephyr game only 9 batters came to the plate, not allowing their 10th batter to get an at bat. The teams we faced Sunday had to go to small ball to try to manufacture runs against us and our bunt defense played strong not allowing anyone to reach base safely. So far this year we have out scored our opponents 53 - 3 going into our league qualifier tournament next week. The Sting must continue this pace to continue to win against the other top 10 teams going into the State Tournament. Offense will be our focus, we must continue to work on our hitting to score runs against the top 10 teams we will face.
Our team Stinger for this week is Abby Whritenour - Abby went 3 for 5 and reached base a 4th time with a walk. In our 2 games she hit a triple and 2 singles resulting in 3 RBI's.
I am working on securing the field for practice on Tuesday this week at Kelly Fields at 6:15pm. Please plan on it, and I will send a confirming email tomorrow morning. Bob Makela (92' Sting) will be running practice, Cassie and I will not be able to make it until the second half of the practice.
ONE NOTE: Players and Parents - We will go over the team conduct rules for summer ball prior to starting next year in a parent meeting. One of my biggest pet peeves are having the players remain on the bench during the game. I have noticed from 3rd base while coaching that I have seen some girls wondering from the bench area during the game. Please have water, snacks etc... given to the players prior to the start of the game. We need the players to stay focused on the game and to encourage and cheer on our other players while on the bench.
Another great weekend !!!!! The girls are really coming together as a team.
Thank you for your continued support, and please check website for the upcoming weekend tournament information.
RICK
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COACHES CORNERS 8-27-07
August 27th - Fall Ball Week #2 - 8/26/07
We had a beautiful day to play some ball, and it was another productive day for the 94' team, a tie and a win. We started out slow with our bats against the Hopkins team and played very good defense for the entire game. The defensive play of the day goes to Kayla Wenner catching the deep fly ball and hitting the cut on her throw to stop what was the game winning run against Hopkins. Moving forward our girls will have to work hard on the hitting aspect of the game. The pitching we saw yesterday against the Hopkins team represents what we will continue to see this fall and for sure next summer as we will have to play up as an open team.
During our second game the hitting picked up against New Ulm to score 8 runs for our win yesterday. I was very impressed with our 2 starting pitchers, Cassie Santiago in our first game against Hopkins only allowed one hit in her 4 innings pitched and Morgan Nybo during our second game against New Ulm did not give up a hit during her 4 innings pitched. Coley Ries also stepped in and pitched 3 good innings yesterday as a reliever for our team between both games. I was very happy with our base running in the second game, we were able to try some of our different strategies with slapping, bunting and delayed steals to advance runners and score runs.
Our featured Team Stinger this week is Ari Hipolito - Ari went 4 for 5 in our 2 games at the plate with 2 slap hits and 3 hits for singles, knocking in 2 RBI's.
We will have practice on Wednesday 8/29 at Gene Kelly fields on 104th and 2nd (map on website), please arrive at 6:00pm to begin promptly at 6:15pm. Again I will try to secure a pitching machine (that will make it through practice) to work on our bunting, slapping and hitting. We will also walk through our new pick off plays that Bob introduced to the team at our last practice.
Thank you,
Rick Santiago
Sting 94'
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COACHES CORNERS
August 20, 2007 --
Fall Ball week # 1 - 8/19/07
Hello everyone,
Just wanted to touch base on our start this weekend. Boy the weather did not cooperate, I hope everyone is getting there stuff dried out today. Even with the weather conditions as they were and having to move to different fields, we started out with a bang. It was very nice to see our bats come out so strong for our first outing together. To start the game by batting around the order and putting up 8 runs really let our girls relax and settle in as a team together. Everyone on the team contributed in one way or another to get the Sting our first win. I really wanted to play OMGAA they are one of the better teams out there, and the weather would not let that happen. Hopefully we will get a chance to meet them another time this year.
Our featured Team Stinger this week is Kelsey Jarrett - She was 3 for 3 at the plate with a single and 2 doubles, scoring 4 RBI's. NICE JOB!!!!
I am currently working on securing a pitching machine and field for practice on Wednesday, and will get you the time and a map if it is at a different location. I should have that out to you tomorrow as soon as I know. As in the last email I sent out due to the weather I did not get a chance to get the roster out to sign, and I received a few more birth certificates, and only have one more check to collect. If we could wrap all this up by next Sunday it would be great.
Lastly, as soon as I know where and when we will be playing we will post on the website calendar.
Great start, and this will be the first of many messages to keep you updated on our website.
Thank you for your support,
Rick Santiago
Sting 94'
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Sting 93 Win Labor Day Softball Classic
Sting 93 took first place at the Labor Day Classic Tournament in Grinnell Iowa. After finishing 2 - 1 in pool play on Saturday, September 1, the team opened on Sunday with a 3 - 1 win over the Waterloo Blackhawks. In the second game, the Sting took eight innings to defeat the Muscatine Maniacs 2 - 1 to earn a place in the championship game against the Boone Bombers. In the championship game, the Sting defeated Boone in six innings 8 - 0.
Congratulations Sting!
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THE MOST POPULAR ICE CREAM!
Cookie Dough followed closely by Cookies and Cream
FAVORITE POSITION!
PITCHING FOLLOWED BY SHORTSTOP AND OUTFIELD.
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The MN Sting has produced another awesome team, it's going to be fun watching this talented group come together.
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