Sometimes he forgets how young they are. Entering his second season at the helm of the Malcolm High School softball team, Jay Babb has just one senior on the roster. In fact, more than half of his opening night starting lineup were either freshmen or sophomores.
“Our young players grew leaps and bounds last year,” the Malcolm skipper said. “They still show me at times we have a young team. But, they gained valuable experience last season.”
After coming up short in its first three games, Malcolm capped off the opening week of the 2024 campaign with a 6-3 win over the host school in the Aug. 23 Aurora Invitational.
The teams were scoreless through the first three innings. Samantha Back led off the fourth with a single before a pair of errors on a ball off the bat of Aryanna Myers brought her around to score. Myers scored a few pitches later on the Huskies’ third error of the inning. A four-run top of the sixth sealed the win for Malcolm while Myers scattered six hits to earn the win in the circle.
While the Clippers played error-free defense in the win, they had a combined nine errors in the the day’s fist two games — losses to Auburn and Norris, both by the score of 8-3.
Of the 16 runs credited to junior pitcher Shaylee Heidtbrink, only seven were earned.
“While our team plays defense very well behind Ary, our number one starter,” Babb said, “their performance seems to decline when it’s anyone else in the circle.”
Malcolm lost a heartbreaker in the Aug. 22 opener at Auburn. Though Myers allowed the Bulldogs just one hit to Malcom’s seven, the Clippers still lost 1-0. Auburn’s lone run came after Bree Wehenkel walked and then stole second base. During a successful attempt to steal third, the ball was thrown to left field, allowing Wehenkel to score the game’s lone run on the error.
“If we want to perform well in close games, we have to play errorless ball in those situations,” Babb said. “Offensively, we hit balls hard but we couldn’t put multiple hits together to move runners.”
The Clippers’ lone senior — Jessica Sandell — is off to a good start at the plate with six hits during opening week and a .500 batting average. Sophomore Morgan Tiedeman had four hits and is batting .400 while leading the team in runs scored.
Malcolm (1-3) welcomes Wahoo (2-1) for a Tuesday, Aug. 27, conference clash before making a Thursday, Aug. 29, trip to Pender to face NEN (3-1). The Clippers will compete in the Blair Softball Invite on Saturday, Aug. 31. Malcolm will play Class B No. 2 Blair (3-2) and the Class C defending state champions Ashland-Greenwood (1-1) in pool play.
“Week one felt like some dejà vu from last year,” Babb said. “We lose games we could win and then we come out and play a complete game against a good team. Somewhere we have to break this cycle and lack of consistency.”
