It’s called Fa La Ma.
Shelbi Strickland coined the name. Erika Piancastelli has little idea of its meaning.
“But I just went with it,” the All-American McNeese State catcher said Monday afternoon.
Following another frustrating offensive evening against Tulsa last Friday — a 5-2 loss where the Cowgirls were no-hit through 4.1 innings — the duo devised a theory and a plan was devised to exorcise the demons that were overtaking the team, one littered with offensive talent but short on luck.
Every hard-hit ball found a glove, they said. Each quality at-bat ended in futility.
“(We) just thought, clearly, it’s not us,” Piancastelli said, “so it has to be the bats.”
The team arrived to Ruston for the Louisiana Tech Classic early Sunday morning. One by one, Piancastelli and Strickland took, touched and danced around each bat in this ritualistic attempt to right wrongs.
Whatever these drastic measures summoned worked. The Cowgirls scored 19 runs on 25 hits in a doubleheader sweep of Northern Iowa and Louisiana Tech. Piancastelli hit two of the team’s five home runs.
“This is the first I hear of it,” first-year McNeese coach James Landreneau said of his players’ actions, which they say are now mandatory before each game. “For as tough as things were, they went in there with great effort and great intensity. We had really quality at-bats early in the game laying off of tough pitches and that’s been our focus the last couple weeks but we didn’t always have the results for it.”
“It was refreshing just to see us play to our potential.”
Landreneau shifted his lineup slightly, moving Hailey Drew into the leadoff spot, dropping Piancastelli to second and Morgan Catron — the team’s leading hitter at a .365 clip — to third.
Tori Yanitor, tied with Catron for the team lead with four home runs, hit clean up.
“It felt nice to actually, finally see a result from all of our hard work,” said Drew, who had a home run, three hits and four RBI in the doubleheader. “We’ve been hitting balls hard at people and not getting the result we want. But I feel like now it’s finding holes, we’re finding ways to win and it’s nice to get that result.”
The Fa La Ma’s next test is formidable, a Fat Tuesday matinee against a South Alabama pitching staff that has not permitted a run in its last 28 innings of work.
The Jaguars, who beat McNeese 1-0 in eight innings on Feb. 18 in Mobile, employ two pitchers with ERAs below 0.60.
Devin Brown, who threw eight shutout innings against the Cowgirls earlier this season, has 77 strikeouts in 50.2 innings. Teams hit .112 against the right-hander who mixes a good rise ball with a screwball to keep hitters guessing.
“Reality is, in our last 16 innings against her, we scored two runs,” Landreneau said, referencing the Cowgirls’ 2-1 victory last season. “For facing that type of pitcher, I thought we matched up. We got deep in some counts (on Feb. 18), worked some counts full, had some hard-hit balls that resulted in outs. She’s just a really, really good challenge for us.”
Whether it’s Brown or Destin Vicknair, she of a 0.59 ERA in 30.2 innings of work, the Jaguars’ staff will contend with a Cowgirls lineup that is, at long last, brimming with confidence and displaying what made it so ballyhooed in the preseason.
“Our approach is good right now, we’re seeing the ball well and we have good swings,” Piancastelli said “I think it finally came to us this weekend and we got our bats back, our Fa La Ma mojo.”
from American Press: Your Best News And Advertising Source - Home http://ift.tt/2m4RSkX
0 التعليقات:
Post a Comment