Alden seeks cohesion

Published 9:30 am Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Combining two teams takes time and the Alden Blackhawks fastpitch softball team is finding that out the hard way.

The Blackhawks dropped a doubleheader to Dover-Eyota Monday at home, losing the first game 6-2 and getting no-hit in a 12-0 loss in the second game.

“Still thinking it two towns and trying to mesh together girls with different styles of coaches and trying to get them to play as one,” co-coach Rich Lackey said about the process. “They’re used to different things and different styles. It’s coming.”

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The team, made up of players from Alden and Albert Lea, hasn’t spent much time playing together and showed some signs of progress in a 6-2 loss.

Nicki Schultz went 2-for-3 at the plate and Holly Cole went 1-for-3 with a double and the defense limited its mistakes with only two errors.

In the second game, everything seemed to change as the Blackhawks committed four errors and the offense did not collect a single hit in the game.

“The first game was pretty good,” Lackey said. “Overall pretty good other than one inning where the girls forgot how to play, making mistakes that shouldn’t have been made.”

Dover-Eyota delivered the knockout blow in the fourth inning when it scored 10 runs, taking advantage of fielding mistakes by Alden.

Lackey just wishes there was more time for the team to practice.

“There’s just not enough time in the summer to work on things that need to be fixed,” he said.

Game 1

Dover-Eyota 6, Alden 2

Dover-Eyota – 211 200 – 6 6 1

Alden – 000 002 – 2 3 2

WP – Jessica Potter 6 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 7 K

LP – Lana Howe 6 IP, 6 H, 6 R, 4 ER, 5 BB, 6 K

Game 2

Dover-Eyota 12, Alden 0

Alden – 000 00 – 0 0 4

Dover-Eyota – 110 10x – 12 8 0

WP – Jessica Potter 5 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 6 K

LP – Erin Everhrd 4 IP, 8 H, 12 R, 5 ER, 5 BB, 1 K