A Big League stoppage

Lightning forces doubleheader to be trimmed to one

Friday, July 3, 2009

But Mother Nature, in the form of lightning, forced the second game to be postponed until a future date. The two teams were able to get one complete game in the books with St. Mary's taking the 9-4 victory.

"There seemed to a real sense of urgency from the girls tonight," St. Mary's head coach Monty Wood said. "They hustled in and out. They were aggressive at the plate and tenacious in the field. I think they can sense they're a good team and they want to play well."

District 7 Little League policy states that if there is a flash of lightning, no matter how far away it is, everyone immediately is to stop all activity and enter safe shelter.

Everyone must remain under shelter for a minimum of 30 minutes after the last thunder or lightning strike and every time thunder is heard or lightning seen, the 30-minute clock is to start over, so play would have resumed at approximately 9:45 p.m. in the top of the third inning. The umpires and managers discussed the issue and agreed to replay the second game.

At the time of the delay, St. Mary's had a 1-0 lead over Waldorf. Mother Nature does not want these two teams to meet it seems.

This is the third time a Waldorf-St. Mary's game has been postponed this summer.

Dyana DeVore pitched the first game for St. Mary's (7-2) and earned her fourth victory of the season, striking out six and only gave up four hits and four walks.

Waldorf did not score on DeVore until the sixth inning when it brought three runs across. DeVore now has earned 23 strikeouts in 33 innings and has a seasonal record of 4-0.

St.Mary's has had 42 hits in the past five games, 15 from Tuesday night's match-up, led by Jordan Wood.

Wood went 3 for 4 with five RBIs. Wood's batting average is .615 in her last five games.

Shaina Milby and Lauren Fairfax each connected for doubles in Tuesday's game, while Lauren Davis, Jennifer Nagy and Raven Manigault had two singles each.

This was the first regular season meeting for Waldorf and St. Mary's.

Prior to this game, St. Mary's faced Baden on June 2 and took the doubleheader wins, 9-7 and 9-4. It followed up with three District 7 Invitational Tournament wins against Baden (7-1), Waldorf (4-0) and Northern Calvert (6-2). The Thunder fell to the Southern Maryland Ospreys 7-0 and split against Baden on June 25, 11-9 and 4-1.

Waldorf was trying to break its losing streak and Game 2 was off to a good start with Kaylynn Balleaux's high fast ball working. She had faced eight batters, struck out one and walked one before the game was called.

Balleaux got the job done against Baden on June 18 when she struck out 14 batters with her infamous dropball.

Waldorf head coach Tim Martin was absent Tuesday as he is on vacation, but the team was eager to give him a good report.

tshowalter@somdnews.com