April 12, 2013 at 12:04 p.m.
Dodger girls open with win
Pitcher Sam Arnold struck out 11, walked two and spaced two hits, allowing a runner as far as second only in both the first and seventh innings.
After giving up the lone two safeties in the seventh, one each to Eastlick and Cunzenheim, she fanned Ray and got Wedig to ground out to first.
The Dodgers collected six hits with Brooke Lee and Becca Veinberg both having two and Courtney Cushman and Carley Haack one each.
Lee singled and stole second in the first and trotted home on a Veinberg single. A repeat of that occurred in the third.
Dodgeville coach Gene Van Dyck had these comments on his team's first contest: "While all of us played a very good game, 4 players really stood out.
"Pitcher Sam Arnold was dominating not allowing a hit thru the first 6 & 1/3 innings while striking out 11. While she had a little control problem early in the game, that seemed to work its way out as the game went along. Her fast ball really had some zip on it, but it was her drop ball that was most impressive. She could locate the drop well and it had good movement. It was just about unhittable. Perhaps most important is that with runners on base, she could keep the ball down but out of the dirt.
"Courtney Cushman had a great day behind the plate. There was not a single ball that got behind her in the entire game. She had 2 base runners try to steal second. On the first one, she hesitated slightly and then we missed the tag on a close play at 2nd. Then she nailed the second runner fairly easily.
"Senior Becca Veinberg after having missed all of last year with an injury, has returned to man first base. She had an outstanding game with the glove fielding both batted balls and not quite perfect throws. Also her knowledge of the game and presence helps settle down what is still a fairly young team.
"The rest of the defense played solid which is necessary but really doesn't provide for much to say other than we made 10 outs while committing only 1 error. While we didn't do anything spectacular, we were where we should have been, when we should have been and doing what should have been done.
"While our hitting surely wasn't spectacular, it was fairly solid. We had 4 different girls hit the ball hard and all of our players showed good plate discipline with only 4 strike outs which is really unusual for this early in the year. Offensively Becca and Brooke Lee were the stars of the game. Twice Becca came up with 2 outs and a runner on second and both times had a hit to score the runner for the only 2 runs of the game. Brooke Lee had 2 hits and both times stole second to get in scoring position. She then scored both of our runs.
"This was an important win for us as we hadn't been outside before playing the game and we really didn't know if we could play ball or not. Belmont is always a tough team and we hadn't beaten them for several years. Both teams were basically the same teams as last year throwing the same pitchers. Last year, we opened the season with them beating us 13 to 0 in 5 innings. I think we got 1 or 2 hits and struck out 10 times or so in the 5 innings. So this game was going to let us know if we had improved over the start of last year as much as we appeared to or at least thought that we had. The answer appears promising. Belmont played a good game but we played better. Last year their hitters dominated Sam, this year she dominated them. Last year their pitcher dominated our hitters, this year she didn't.
"I don't want to make too much of this game and say that we're good because you play the season to prove or disprove that. But I will say we're a whole lot better than last year."
