Girls H.S. Softball: Crown Point Girls Softball 2011 Season Preview

CROWN POINT (4-02-2011) I'd like to tell you how Crown Point is going to do this season in softball but I have no idea. The Lady Bulldogs won their season opener 7-2 over unranked Hobart, but lost 13-3 on the road to third-ranked Penn. CP lost to Penn last year, too. Neither result tells you much.

The three key players on last year's record-breaking 27-2 team, catcher Katrina Klingberg, pitchers Jackie Beilfuss and Taylor Perry, have graduated and are playing in college.

The 2011 Lady Bulldogs have six strong returning players, but none of them are pitchers or catchers. And if you understand girls softball, that's a major problem. Softball is often a team sport in name only. You must get quality pitching and catching. The coaching staff and the other seven players on the field cannot overcome a shaky battery.

Coach Brett Crutchfield knows he has a lot of something, but he needs a little of something else.

"We just want to put the ball in play and play some defense," he said the first week of practice. "The roles have been switched. In the past we depended on the pitchers and now the pitchers will depend on us. The defense and the offense."

The new pitchers will be freshman Rachel Centanni and sophomore Siena Gyere. I'm not even sure I am spelling their name correctly because I have never seen them on a CPHS softball roster before.

"I think we'll do well, said senior Victoria Connelly. "New pitching. New catching. How much does that matter? A lot. But defense will be fine."

"They're really great girls and we all have a lot of confidence in them," said senior Gabrielle Raspopovich. "It's tough because we're putting a lot on them. We're there for them if they need anything. We just want them to pretend it's a normal game all the time."

But young players never play a sport with someone three years younger than them on an organized team until their senior year in high school. The structure of youth athletics does not allow that to happen until that point. So seniors girls have to wonder about freshman teammates. A three-year gap in age when you are a teenager is like 20 years to adults.

"I have a younger sister but she's one year younger," Gabby said. "I just want to set good examples and make them feel they can come to me. We don't want them to be afraid of us. We always want to be a family."

"I feel like it's important to stay positive no matter what happens. Make sure they're never down. Make them comfortable. What ever happens, it's okay. It's not all on them."

Raspopovich has pleasant memories of her freshman season in the spring of 2008. For the most part.

"My freshman year I came up to the varsity and sprained my ankle," she recalls. "Then I broke my arm. So mostly they just felt sorry for me. But the seniors said, 'Just keep working. It will pay off.' And it has."

In the sectional last season Crown Point started Connelly in left field, Raspopovich in center and Allison Amodeo in right field. Second baseman Raeanna (Lulu) Jenks and Jessica Palm were the double play combination with Kelsey Batz at first base. All six players return this season, a number that few schools ever have. If the new Lady Bulldog pitchers are effective, CP will be very good again.

Crutchfield reports that the success of the last two years (51-7 overall) seems to have upped the dedication level of his players.

"It's promising so far," he said one week into practice. "We've had 25-30 kids at conditioning. That's far and away more than we've had in the past."

But the coach does not pretend that he knows what the next 28 games will reveal.

"We've got a senior outfield that's been together since they were sophomores," he said. "That doesn't happen that often. But let's see what happens when we start playing for real."

LADY BULLDOG NOTES: The fourth team in the annual Crown Point Invitational will be 2A defending state champion Wheeler. The Bearcats will join Hanover Central, Andrean and CP in a full day of round robin play on April 23. Each team will play each of the other three teams.

"At the (North-South) all-star game," explainbed CP coach Brett Crutchfield, "Mark (Wheeler coach Mark Bruner) and I were talking and we were looking for their fourth team. I asked him if he would want to come over and play and he said 'sure'."

Crutchfield's original idea was to have one top team from all four classes in the tournament. Class 3A Andrean and Class 2A Hanover jumped at the chance, but 1A Whiting balked and 1A South Central was overmatched. Last season Class 3A South Bend St. Joseph's didn't show up. Wheeler asked to play Crown Point last year and they have always had a big rivalry with Hanover Central.

Instead of representing four classes, the four teams now represent four different leagues, the Duneland Conference (CP). the Northwest Crossroads Conference (Andrean), the Greater South Shore Conference (Wheeler) and the Porter County Conference (Hanover).

"I'd love it to be four classes, but I'll settle for four teams from four different leagues," Crutchfield said. "And hopefully, we get it in. We've had it rain for three years."

Crutchfield has replaced former assistant coach Ginger Britton (who is now the new head coach at Lowell) with Russ Serrato, who was let go from the head coaching position at Andrean last season. Five years ago, Serrato and Crutchfield were both assistants under now-retired coach Frank Podkul at Andrean.

"It's good to be reunited," said Crutchfield of his long time coaching pal. "He brings so much knowledge. We lost a good one in Ginger and she'll do fine there (at Lowell). The second thing I thought was, 'How long have I been in this business? One of my assistants is head coach now?' Like when I was at Andrean with Frank and now I'm here."

"Jackie Beilfuss (2010 grad) has already 'signed' her contract to be my pitching coach when she graduates."

Gabrielle Raspopovich has considered playing both volleyball and softball in college, either one, or neither.

"I'd be happy with one," she said. "I've learned how to manage my time really well. But I don't even know if I'm going to play any sport in college. That's an idea which has come into my head, too."

Crown Point Lady Bulldogs 2011 Softball Preview