ANAMOSA — It literally hurt watching the Raider softball team play so well for so long in so many different contests earlier this season only to watch as late opponent’s rallies cost the Anamosa girls leads in six games.

“It’s been frustrating, to say the least,” said Raider softball coach Gary Stamp.
“But we finally broke through against Maquoketa Valley.”

Anamosa (2-9, 2-2) scored three big first inning runs hosting the Wildcats Wednesday, June 7, and added to their lead in the second and third innings to roll to a big 6-1 victory in the first game of the doubleheader.

“Scoring those runs early really helped with our confidence,” said Stamp as Paige Goetz, Sara Schultejans and Emily Jansen all crossed the plate in the frame.

“We actually played very well all the way around in this one. We got good pitching and played good defense and got some timely hits. If we can start doing this on a more consistent basis, we’ll be a lot better off.”

Goetz and Cammy Dole scored for the Raiders in the second inning while Megan Carpenter crossed the plate in the third as Anamosa built a lopsided advantage.

“We have scored early in quite a few games this year only to see those early runs be the only ones we score in the entire game,” said Stamp. “It was also nice to see us not sit on those four first inning runs and add to our lead. We seem to be making some improvements with this team. It’s coming along slowly, but it’s coming.”

Kelsi Dearborn took advantage of all the run support tossing five shutout frames from the pitchers’ circle for the hosts allowing just one hit before giving way to sister Laci who hurled the final two frames of hitless softball.

“We were in this game mentally and I think that big first inning had a lot to do with that,” said Stamp. “We need to stay mentally sharp all the time or else this could be a long season.”

The Raiders stayed sharp in the second game as Mallory Lacy tossed a five-hit shutout for Anamosa as the hosts rolled to a big 6-0 rout of Maquoketa Valley.

“I really hope these pair of games gets us going now,” said Stamp. “We needed a spark after that very rough first week and hopefully this is it.”

“I just wish we would have been able to get our tournament in last weekend and have kept that momentum going.”

Goetz, Ahrendsen and Jansen paced a nine-hit Raider offense with two hits each while Lacy was sensational firing a five-hitter while fanning seven Wildcat batters.

Anamosa traveled to Springville for the Tri-Rivers Conference opener for both teams and in the first game of the twin-bill, the Raiders were handed a bitter 5-0 loss.

“We just were not mentally ready to play softball tonight,” said Stamp. “This was the conference opener against a pretty good Springville team and we should have been up for this game, but we weren’t for whatever reason and that was very disappointing to see.”

The Orioles scored in the very first inning then added two more in the second before tallying two more in the fifth.

“I think the girls were still very frustrated from their tough weekend at Tipton and all the frustration from last week’s games boiled over in this one,” said Stamp. “We didn’t stand a chance.”

Raider bats did rip five hits off Oriole pitcher Lindsey Andersen, but only two base-runners reached third in the loss as the hits were spread out throughout the contest.

Kelsi Dearborn tossed a seven-hitter in the pitchers’ circle and allowed just one earned run as three Anamosa errors led to four Springville runs.

The second game once again saw heartbreak hit the Raiders as the Orioles plated the game-winning run in their final at-bat in the seventh as a passed ball allowed the game-winning run to score in a 5-4 defeat.

“We woke up a bit but still couldn’t get over the hump,” said Stamp. “Sara had a big hit for us to tie it in the seventh.”

Schultejans plated Goetz with a double in the seventh tying the score at 4-4 before the late Oriole heroics.

Goetz, Schultejans and Dole all crossed the plate for the visitors in the fifth as Anamosa took a brief 3-1 lead.

Raider bats ripped an impressive 12 hits in the narrow setback.

ANAMOSA — The JV softball job at Anamosa came open last summer when Heather Reid announced the 2005 season would be her last as the Raider JV head coach and varsity assistant coach after two seasons.

Raider varsity head coach Gary Stamp immediately had a person in mind to fill the position.

His wife of 32 years, Ava Stamp.

“We needed a coach and I thought she would make a great candidate,” said Gary. “She knows the game very well and would bring a lot to our program.”

Ava has sat behind the fence for more than 30 years watching her husband coach baseball and softball in the area, as well as football, and thought getting onto the field of play was something she might someday like to try during the summer.