ANAMOSA — Knowing very little about what position they might be playing or even if they were playing or who they where playing for, the start of the 2007 Anamosa softball season has been bizarre to say the least for Raider players, parents and fans.

Anamosa opened the books on the campaign Monday, May 28, with first-year coach Suzy Scheef as the program leader. The Raiders hosted No. 3 ranked Solon who handed the hosts a 14-0 setback in a contest that Anamosa actually played very will in.

Less than 24 hours later however, Scheef had resigned and the program appeared to be reeling until Raider JV softball coach Ron Timp and seventh grade coach Rick Delagardelle stepped in to save the season.

“It’s been a difficult time for the girls and it’s been a difficult time for us coaches as well with this change,” said Timp who will work with Delagardelle as co-head varsity softball coaches for the remainder of the 2007 softball campaign.

“For the last several weeks the girls have worked with coach Scheef and now with her gone, we have to start all over again and that’s going to take some time for everyone to get on the same page with exactly what’s going on.”

Anamosa (0-3) hung tough with the extremely talented Spartans trailing just 3-0 through the game’s first five innings before the Solon bats broke loose in the sixth and final frame.

“We were playing excellent defense and Mallory had their batters off-balance through most of the first few innings,” said Timp who worked the game from the first-base coaches box. “But when Solon started hitting the softball, there was nothing we could do to stop it.
They just kept on hitting and kept on hitting but I was extremely proud of the way our girls played. This was our first look at live-pitching this season and even though we struggled with our bats against a very good Solon pitcher, we at least gave them a game for quite a while.”

The Raiders hit the road Wednesday, May 30, with Timp taking over the duties as the new Anamosa varsity softball coach traveling to Vinton-Shellsburg where the Raiders again got off to a solid start.

“This was a very emotional time for the girls and for me with what had transpired in the last 24 hours,” said Timp. “But the team did a great job of putting all of that behind them and just went out and played some pretty good softball.”

Anamosa jumped out to a 4-0 lead as Cammy Dole, Kelli Vaughn, Kayla Sanborn and Dakota Ahrendsen all crossed the plate in the third-inning, breaking a scoreless tie.

CENTRALCITY — Having already lost four games due to rain this summer, weather played havoc on the Anamosa baseball team again this past week as the Raiders lost three more games due to rain.

Anamosa was able to hit the diamond in Central City Thursday, May 31, and in a tough test against a scrappy Wildcat team, held on for a 5-3 triumph.

“The guys were feeling the heat against Central City,” said Raider baseball coach Byron Schlotterback. “This is a team we’ve beaten easily over the last several years but this time they were giving us all we could handle and more.”

Anamosa (4-3, 1-1) scored quickly against the Wildcats as Tucker Vondracek led off the game with a single then worked his way around thanks to a Nate Vaughn hit and scored on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Nathan Kaufman.

“I like scoring early,” said Schlotterback. “It puts the pressure on right away and gets momentum going in our direction quickly.”

Vondracek scored again in the third inning after singling, stealing second and then reaching third off a Vaughn bunt double. Vondracek crossed the plate thanks to a sacrifice fly by Brandon Kula and Anamosa had a 2-0 lead.

Central City got on the board in the fourth taking advantage of a pair of Raider errors to plate a run and trimming the visitor’s lead in half.

Anamosa responded in their half of the fifth when Vaughn crossed the plate off an RBI double from Kaufman.
With the Raiders leading 3-1, Central City again rallied knotting the score after plating two in the bottom of the fifth.
“Things got a little nervous there,” said Schlotterback. “But we settled down and played our game down the stretch.”

Greg Vernon swung momentum back in the Raiders’ direction singling and then scoring on a Jordan Alderdyce ground out giving Anamosa a 4-3 lead. Then in the seventh, Kula helped himself launching a solo home run adding a key two-run cushion.

“Brandon pitched a solid game too,” said Schlotterback. “He scattered eight hits and just worked a very smart game on the hill.”

The Lions put their experience to the test Tuesday, May 29, in the season-opener at North Linn where Olin impressed fans with an 11-8 triumph.

“We fell behind and North Linn had a huge fourth inning but we didn’t let it bother us and we rallied back and picked up a big win,” said Ginn as her team came back from an 8-2 deficit to score the game’s final nine runs. “We’re young but we’ve got some fire to us.
To have the resolve to come back after giving up a seven-run inning shows we are fighters and we’ll never quit.”

Olin (2-2, 0-1) led 2-1 after Stolte and Rachel LeClere scored in the second inning then after watching the Lynx explode for seven runs in the fourth frame, the Lion girls rallied back scoring four times in the top of the fifth as Frederick, Hansen, Ginn and Stolte all crossed the plate.

On the short end of an 8-6 score, Olin scored four more times in the sixth as Bean, Frederick, Hansen and Stolte gave the visitors a 10-8 edge.

The Lions added an insurance run in the seventh and held on for the thrilling three-run triumph.

“That was a nice way to start the season,” said Ginn as her team ripped a whopping 17 hits against Lynx pitching.

Hansen and Stolte paced the offense with three hits each while Bean, Frederick, Ginn and Jackee Butteris all added two hits to the effort.