Like a runaway train
Nothing is going to stop the Humboldt State women's softball team from attaining the 2008 NCAA Division II Softball Championships.
At least, that's what it looks like up to this point.
With pitcher Lizzy Prescott seemingly out to prove she is the best D-II pitcher in the nation and a resurgent offense backing her up, the Jacks are on a tear right now.
HSU has gone a long way since dropping their first game in the NCAA West Regional last week in jaw-dropping fashion. After getting 10-run ruled by Cal State San Bernarndio, head coach Frank Cheek and the women were on fire, blazing a trail in the West Regionals all the way into the third day of nationals in the winners' bracket, with eyes dead set on winning a national title.
While cohort Erik Fraser covered the Jacks for the majority of the year, what I got to see in postseason play was admirable.
Despite sustaining a bone-shattering roundhouse punch to the jaw by San Bernie's, HSU bunkered down and laid the smack on the opposition at the West Regionals.
Prescott was far from the pitcher who could not talk to the media after the CSUSB loss. What I saw was a senior laying it all on the line and looking to go out with a blaze of glory. Forcing batters to react to her fast, rise and curve ball, Prescott was like the Terminator on the mound. Nothing was going to stop her, I mean nothing.
Sure, teams got some hits off of her and even a home run at the Nationals in Houston. But Prescott stayed focus, fanning batters left and right.
With their ace doing all she could at the mound, how could the defense and offense not respond.
From Caitlin Klug, Natalie Galletley, Nikkie Ketteringham, Geneva Perrine, Chrissy Motzny and down the line. The Jacks' bats have shown up when it matters most.
I knew, when Francesca West sold out and dove for an impossible catch on a flyout that was heading into HSU's dugout against Western Oregon at the West Regional championship game, the Jacks were going to make some noise at Nationals. And Cheek knew it too.
"They better watch out."
A simple sentence, from an intricate and complicated tactician.
The Jacks have made quite a bang at the D-II Championship thus far.
If they ran the gauntlet and claimed a National Championship .. I dare say we on the North Coast would probably hear Cheek's, Prescott's, hell everyone associated with HSU in Houston's screams of joy.