By Matt Turer — mturer@ky3.com
@MattTurer
The Bridget Rippe era is over for Willard softball.
The outgoing senior, all-region selection and 2017 1 Awards nominee was one of the best pitchers and hitters in the Ozarks the past four seasons and showed off all of that on her way out. Rippe hit .538 with 24 extra-base hits as a senior and pitched her way to an 18-10 record behind 224 strikeouts and a 1.78 ERA in 182.2 innings last year.
But Rippe is gone. Top bats KayLee Pinzke (.526 AVG.), Kennedy Burch (.368 AVG.) and Savannah Yeargan (.460 AVG.) are gone too, and head coach Ashleigh Williams knows what the focus needs to be for Willard softball in 2017.
“We’re rebuilding,” Williams said during the Republic Summer League in June. “[Rippe has been] solid in the circle for us for four years, and great for us offensively. But not just her. We lost our shortstop, catcher and centerfielder.
“[Rebuilding] is a slow process, but hopefully summer [helped] those girls who didn’t have experience get experience and get to know each other. We’ll see how it plays out.”
Two of those girls include the heir-apparents to Rippe in the circle: Cheyenne Terry (Jr.) and Emma Frazier (Soph.). Both saw minimal action pitching last season, with Frazier finishing with a 0.00 ERA and one strikeout in two innings and Terry a 21.00 ERA and one strikeout in five innings. Both Frazier’s non-existent ERA and Terry’s high one should be mostly ignored as the inning totals don’t give a large enough to sample size to fairly evaluate either one.
As of June, Williams seemed to have pegged Frazier as the No. 1 and Terry as the No. 2.
CLICK HERE TO SEE ALL OF THE FALL SPORTS PREVIEWS
“It’ll just depend on who’s throwing well. They both bring something a little bit different, but we’ll see. I think our best lineup is probably when Emma is in the circle,” Williams said.
Both Frazier and Williams will pitch to contact and mix up speeds as opposed to putting up the type of strikeout numbers that Rippe did. But as Ozark ace Brooke Pridgen has shown, that’s not a bad thing if you’re good at it.
“We’re really going to have to rely on defense a lot more than in the past with Bridget, who could shut hitters down and keep us in ballgames,” Williams said. “[Our pitchers’] job this year is to keep walks to a minimum, keep us in games and try to let our defense and offense scrap for some runs.”
Willard’s best returning bat might be Terry, who hit .257 with nine extra-base hits last season, but sophomore Taylor Bagley (.289 AVG.) will also challenge for that title, especially if she can improve on her four extra-basers. Williams pointed to senior outfielders Ashleigh Alumbaugh (.182 AVG.), Doreen Edmond (.179 AVG.) and Kenzi Hayes (.143 AVG.) as three other names to keep an eye on.
Bagley played third base last season and will make the move to shortstop this season. Williams is excited about the lefty slapper’s future and said she’ll hit leadoff.
“She’s just good. She’s smart. The only thing she kind of lacks is that vocal leadership there at shortstop, and that’s just going to come with age,” Williams said. “She’s the whole package. I’m excited to see her develop in her second year.”
Williams must also be excited about Nevada, Mo. move-in Ashley McConnaughey, who is pegged to start at catcher as a freshman.
“Really it’s a clean slate,” Williams said of the coming season. “We have high hopes, but it’s going to depend on how we come together. A lot of other teams are in the rebuilding process, so it’s kind of a wide-open conference this year. It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be hard. We’re just going to kind of go with it. We have a lot of girls that can jump in there if some aren’t producing, so I’m really excited to see what will play out this fall.”
