Falcons keep flying

BOB ETTINGER
Star Beacon

May 13, 2008 03:53 am

— CONNEAUT — Jefferson’s Kari Rouzer might want to start playing her home games at Skippon Park in Conneaut. The senior hurler used both her arm and bat to carry the Falcons past Conneaut, 7-0, in a Northeastern Conference clash.
“I think Kari wishes she can play every game here,” Jefferson coach Paul Bodnar said. “It seems like she swings the bat real well here.”
With the win, the Falcons (16-5, 8-2) keep pace with NEC co-leader Edgewood (16-3, 8-2) in the race for the league championship.
“We told them that we’re in a situation we can control our own destiny,” Bodnar said. “Where we’re at, with our ability, we want to make teams beat us. We don’t want to beat ourselves.”
“We know we have to win the rest of our NEC games from here on out,” Courtney Francis said.
Rouzer blasted a two-run homer over the left-field fence — her second roundtripper in as many games in Conneaut this season — to put Jefferson up 3-0 in the top of the third.
“It wasn’t like that was a lazy fly ball, either,” Bodnar said. “That ball got out in a hurry.”
“I’m not sure (why I hit the ball so well here),” Rouzer, who now has four career home runs, said. “It seems like this is the only field I hit ball (at).”
She drove in four of Jefferson’s seven runs with the homer, a double and by reaching on an error.
Rouzer also twirled a gem on the mound in a complete-game four-hitter. She struck out eight and walked two.
“She did a nice job mixing up her pitches and changing speeds,” Bodnar said. “She located the ball in and out and we played good defense behind her.”
“That was Kari knowing what pitches to throw,” Conneaut coach Mary Holdson said. “She threw a nice changeup. We could’ve been more aggressive. Those were nice pitches she was throwing at us. She’s a veteran pitcher. She pitched a good game.”
“Moving the ball in and really helped,” Rouzer said. “I finally got my changeup to work today. It hasn’t worked much this season. I fixed my mechanics. My dad told me what I was doing wrong and I fixed it.”
The Falcons had 10 hits in the game, making the most of nearly every runner that reached base.
“Hitting is contagious,” Bodnar said. “We’d get a hit, then they’d followed one another with a hit.”
“Once one of us was hitting, everybody caught on,” Courtney Francis said. “It was a, ‘If she can get a hit, I can, too.’”
Courtney Francis was 4-for-4 at the plate with three doubles and three runs scored to lead the Falcon attack. Sophomore Hannah Francis added a pair of singles.
Jefferson added to the 3-0 lead in the fifth when Courtney Francis and Rouzer hit back-to-back doubles. The Falcons scored three more times in the seventh.
Hannah Francis led off the inning with a single, Courtney Francis followed with a double to the gap in right-center and Rouzer reached on an error to score Hannah Francis. Courtney Francis then scored on a double steal in the first-and-third situation and Cassie Santiago, running for Rouzer, scored on a sacrifice fly to left by Callie Busch.
“They were aggressive running the bases,” Holdson said. “They turned some singles into doubles to get into scoring position, then they’d hit another double to bring the first one in. They did well hitting the ball, but they were aggressive on the bases as well.”
Brittany Metzner reached on a two-base error and scored on a single to short right field by Megan Gochneaur with a Conneaut error on the play.

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