Northwest Indiana Top-10 Week-2, 2008 High School 'Renegade' Poll 4-02-2008
	A USA-365.com Special Report by Mark Smith

MERRILLVILLE, IN (04-02-2008) As usual, the weather has grounded several teams who attempted to play early games in late March.  As the month ended, powers Whiting, Hanover Central, Chesterton and Portage had not played the season opener.  The discussion of switching the softball season to the fall appears to be picking up steam.  As has been said here many times in the last six years, a switch of softball for soccer would be very beneficial because soccer can be played in March in 35 degree weather while softball truly cannot.  A fall softball season that begins on August 1 would make the game a spectator sport, something it simply is not right now.  Games could be played at 10 a.m. or 6 p.m. to avoid the 95-degree August heat.  There's no school in August so games could be played at 2:00 a.m. if they wanted to.  An almost unlimited amount of games could be played before school begins in the same way golf teams play three or four tournaments in the first week before school starts.

In Michigan, every high school softball date is a double-header (they have daylight until 9 p.m. EST) and they can play 40 games.  If you begin the softball season before school starts, you could play double-headers every other day because the sun is shining until past 8 p.m.  I don't really care about summer league softball teams and the IHSAA doesn't either.  Summer teams would have to work around the fall high school schedule and they most certainly would.  If some girls refused to play high school ball because of their summer team, there would simply be open positions for other girls.

Summer golf youth tourneys end before the high school season.  Summer softball teams would surely do the same.  With no spring softball, summer programs could begin in late May so they wouldn't be hurt unless they were stubborn.

Something has to be done for the sake of this sport.  It snowed on March 28, all fields were flooded on March 31 and the state tournament begins on May 19.  The season, as it stands now, lasts about seven weeks and teams desperately schedule mid-March games that are lost and never regained.  Kids risk their health playing single games outdoors at school on days when their mom would not let them play outdoors at home because it was too cold.

If you began the softball season on August 1 (playing double headers every Tuesday and Thursday and tournaments on Saturday), you could schedule a minimum of 36 games in six weeks and the entire state tournament could be over before October 10.  It works.  And since college softball plays in the  spring, college coaches would scout Indiana girls in the fall much more seriously because they would be idle in August and September.

Spring seasons would help soccer because teams could play Friday night games and draw better crowds.  Soccer would end after school ended and long overtime games would not create zombie soccer players who would try to go to school the next day.  Also, the overload of eight fall IHSAA sports would be eased because we'd be trading two (boys and girls soccer) for one.

There's just no down side to the switch.  We need coaches to suggest it to the IHSAA.

Now, if I could suggest something to all softball teams.  Please let someone in the media know when you do NOT play a game.  Many of you assume that no one wants to come and watch you play.  It's not enough just for your parents and your brother to know the game date and time has been changed or that today's game has been canceled.  Get on line and email the newspapers or radio stations to tell them about postponed and rescheduled games.  Coaches may not have time.  Nothing stops players and parents from doing that.  If you are a player, you know whether your game was postponed or not.  You can't possibly be wrong.  Let folks know.

MERRILLVILLE:  Not a good start for Andrean, even though they beat Illiana Christian 3-2 on March 25.  The Niners lost the Center Grove Tournament to the weather and it is highly unlikely those games can be re-scheduled.  The 59ers have tournaments remaining at LaPorte, Crown Point, Mishawaka, Monticello and Dowagiac, Michigan on April 12.  Sophomore Alyssa Mosely doubled in the winning run in the bottom of the seventh inning against Illiana (2-1), which is predicted to be a quality team this spring in Lansing, Illinois.  Andrean is a young team that needs to play.  Good luck with that this week.  Steady rain will keep them on the sidelines, but hopefully, the 59ers can play Lowell (April 3) on Thursday.

2.  (4A) LAKE CENTRAL (1-1)
21-6 (2007), 25-8 (2006), 32-1 (2005), 29-3 (2004), 32-3-1 (2003)

ST. JOHN:  LC smoked out Munster 15-3 and lost 3-1 to Penn in the first week.  Both results were deceptive.  LC led Munster 5-3 after four innings before they blew it open with an 18-hit attack, including 4-for-5 by shortstop Sarah Shields.  The Indians lost on the road to Penn when they used inexperienced pitcher Karissa Inglis, who gave up two runs in the first inning before she started pitching shutout ball.  Allison Aguilera hit a home run at Penn in a losing cause.  Rachel Weaver and junior Jessica Dobson will probably pitch most games for LC, but Inglis is a senior who will play at Purdue-North Central and she will be getting innings.  I don't see many teams scoring more than three runs on Lake Central and the early show of offense (25 hits in 2 games) is very encouraging.  I don't know where Lake Central got this underdog role that every team seems to want to play these days.  Portage and Chesterton are 'down' from last year.  Everyone predicts LC to win the DAC.  They have the DAC's top two pitchers and they are the prohibitive league favorite.

3.  (4A) LOWELL (2-0)
30-7 (2007), 23-7 (2006), 21-10 (2005), 20-9 (2004)

LOWELL:  Lowell rolled over Merrillville 13-2 and nipped Valparaiso 2-0 before the bad weather moved in again.  Shortstop Megan Bolanowski, who did bat .309 in half a season last year, hit a home run in her first home game as the starting shortstop against Valpo.  New catcher Nina Iaokimidis was 3-for-3.  It now looks like Iaokimidis will spilt time with 2007 all-area catcher Katherine Allert, who will play some third base.  Allert had an RBI double against Valparaiso in a Duneland Athletic Conference (DAC) game.  The Devils will be fine defensively and the pitching, with Allyssa Reed and Kaitlyn Bolanowski, who combined on the shutout of the Vikings, will be above average.  The question still is, how much will Lowell hit and how many runs can they score?  That question will come up Thursday (April 2) if the rain lets up and the Devils can host Andrean.

4.  (2A) HANOVER CENTRAL (0-0)
20-10 (2007), 16-14 (2006), 26-5-3 (2005), 25-7 (2004)

CEDAR LAKE:  I don't even know what to say here.  These poor girls are 0-for-4 in rainouts.  Maybe they'll play Munster Thursday in Cedar Lake, but look at the Weather Channel: Maybe they won't.  There is a very good chance that Hanover will not play at all this week after having consecutive games against River Forest, Chesterton and Munster postponed last week. The delays may help them more than anyone. Third baseman Shannon Kiraly went on spring break, and as it turns out, she didn't miss any games at all.  First baseman Victoria Wigsmoen has been injured and all this idle time simply can't hurt her chances of playing this season.  Hanover didn't have any regular games schedule this week until Saturday, April 5 when they are scheduled to meet Clinton Prairie in the quarterfinals of the eight-team LaVille Tournament.  They will attempt to make up the three postponements.  But nobody's heard from the Lady Cats and rumors are they may change their name to the Dolphins and try water polo.

5.  (4A) CROWN POINT (1-1)
2007 (16-14), 2006 (13-14), 2005 (12-14), 2004 (8-19,) 2003 (16-16)

CROWN POINT:  CP should be 2-0, but New Prairie rallied with two out in the seventh and beat CP 3-2 in eight innings in CP's home opener on March 25.  The Lady Bulldogs certainly will lose home games against Morton (already postponed) and Lake Central on March 31 and April 1 due to the rain.  In the early going, sophomore Taylor Perry struck out 10 in six innings against New Prairie and Jessica Martinez hit her first home run of the season.  The pitching staff gave up just three earned runs in two games.  CP left a lot of runners on base, but they have not truly started the season yet.  Junior pitcher Kelsey Rather suffered an ankle injury against New Prairie and the rain delays give her time to get better.  A big focus here is:   I don't know if taking grounders in the fieldhouse gets you ready to play your league's top team.  When will the Lake Central game be replayed?  The Indians are the Duneland Athletic Conference (DAC) favorite and the standard by which CP will be judged during the regular season.  They don't want to come off an eight or nine day lay-off and play LC.

6.  (4A) Munster (0-1)
2007 (24-7), 2006 (22-7), 2005 (25-3-1), 2004 (25-3-1), 2003 (22-7), 2002 (15-12)

MUNSTER:  Okay, the season opener, a 4-1 win over Homewood-Flossmoor, went a lot better than game two, a 15-2 loss to Lake Central, a game that was 2-2 after two innings.  I'm not going to pretend it's a positive to get blown out early in the season, but a loss like that very early can be a motivator and it definitely removes any illusions about where you have to be against a sectional rival.  The Lady Ponies' focus this year was scoring runs and they had six runs on 14 hits in the first two games, which is a positive.  The double down side to this loss was that the weather forced Munster to be idle for a week after losing by 13 runs.  The Mustang girls have a chance to rebound against Porter County Conference (PCC) favorite Hanover Central at the cow-friendly Cedar Lake Softball complex Thursday.  Again though, those dairy cows have a better chance of getting on that field this week than Munster and Hanover do.

7.  (2A) Wheeler (0-0)
2007 (25-4), 2006 (14-16), 2005 (10-18), 2004 (7-21), 2003 (7-18)

UNION TOWNSHIP:  To my knowledge, Wheeler had not played a game at the end of the month, but they return dominant pitcher Lanay Parks (20-3, 0.51 ERA, 255 strikeouts, 15 shutouts in 2007) so they will be ready when the time comes.  The Bearcats need to break in a new catcher MacKenzie Ness (.279), but shortstop Marcy Medina (36-74, .486) returns, Parks (32-71, .451) is the clean-up hitter and junior Shelisa Boiles (.329) is back in center field.  The 5-foot-10 Parks struck out 10 or more 16 times in 2007 and she should rule the   Greater South Shore Conference (GSSC).  I don't know when Wheeler plays Whiting and I also don't know if the GSSC is going to have a league championship tournament.  But one of the highlights of this season will be the match ups between Parks and Whiting star Mel Dumezich (25-4, 433 strikeouts in 2007).

8.  (4A) Chesterton (0-0)
2007 (20-6), 2006 (30-2), 2005 (27-3-1), 2004 (20-7), 2003 (22-5)

CHESTERTON:  Again, this team has not gotten on the field yet.  Games with Griffith, Lowell and Hanover Central were put on the shelf by rain, snow and cold.  It's not a good sign when your home opener is canceled by a blizzard.  The Trojans might even want to call up Lowell and HC and play them both on the same day (both are Chesterton home games) to save time.  What that day is going to be was not obvious as of Monday.  Catie Armstrong (.413, 3 HRs, 17 RBIs), Alexis Paz (.374, 12 steals) and outfielder Amanda Gough (.356, 23 RBIs) will lead the offense, but they'll need pitchers.  Not playing early will affect them more than it will affect Wheeler and Hanover who have veteran players.  Chesterton has a big field house, so they aren't as bad as some schools, but the three postponements hurt them.

9.  (4A) Portage (0-0)
2007 (23-7), 2006 (18-12), 2005 (20-9), 2004 (27-4-3), 2003 (19-9)

PORTAGE:  Word from Portage is that any of five pitchers could go for them replacing Maegen Gutierrez who is half of the pitching rotation (Hanover's Amanda Wendlinger is the other half) at the University of Indianapolis.  Truthfully though, if you have more than two or three pitchers, you don't really have one dominating one.  The Indians play a very difficult schedule that includes Penn, Illinois giant Lincoln-Way East and Lakeshore Michigan.  Portage lost some games to the weather in 2007 and hopefully they'll also get their schedule back up near the 30-game level, although it doesn't look good early.  The Indians slide in the poll because they have an all new team and an all new team needs to get on the field.  I still hear good things about them, but since they haven't been seen outdoors since last fall, what I hear are just rumors.

10.  (3A) Griffith (1-0)
2007 (16-14), 2006 (12-19), 2005 (19-15), 2004 (16-15), 2003 (18-14)

GRIFFITH:  Senior right-hander Brittany Bridges struck out 14 in a season-opening 16-0 win over Merrillville.  Kaylynn Ruiz had four base hits and Bridges collected three RBIs.  The Panthers may show a lot more offense in 2008 after a few years as a slap-and-singles team.  I'll say it again, Griffith plays a very difficult schedule, including most of the DAC, so they will not win 20 games.  But since there is no league tournament in the Northwest Crossroads Conference and there is no state tournament seeding, the regular season is fairly meaningless for them.  They'll get two shots at 4A regional champ Lowell and they'll get two shots at 3A state champ Andrean, but they shouldn't get too excited about the results, either way.  The Panthers have a postponement with Chesterton to make up and they surely sat out Monday (March 31) and Tuesday (April 1).  Like Whiting and Merrillville, Griffith's edge is that they can play night games in the city park on Broad Street.  So if the games back up into mid-May, the Panthers can play one team at 4:30 p.m. and another team at 7:00 p.m.  You can't keep the big cats in the cage forever.

On the outside looking in...

(1A) Whiting (0-0)
2007 (26-4), 2006 (33-0), 2005 (11-16), 2004 (28-6), 2003 (21-10)

WHITING:  To my knowledge, Whiting had not gotten on the field as of April 1, but with an experienced pitcher and catcher, it is not as crucial for them.  Also, the Oilers can play night games so they can make up multiple postponements more easily than schools without lights.  Mel Dumezich (58-4 in two years) is on line to become the first NW Indiana softball pitcher to win 100 games.  I do not believe that any NW Indiana softball pitcher has ever won 20 games four years in a row.  Olympic star Leslie Malerich did not win 20 as a freshman.  Lake Central rarely has freshmen pitchers who get into 20 games and Portage's four-year regular Maegen Gutierrez never won 20 in a season.  What's interesting is that as Dumezich tries to form four 20-win seasons, so will Wheeler's Lanay Parks, who went 20-3 as a freshman in 2007.  Oddly, the Oilers probably have a better chance of reaching the 1A state finals than they do than beating Wheeler twice (the two teams split last year) and winning the Greater South Shore Conference.  The Parks-Dumezich debate will be a focus this year.  Fortunately they'll go head-to-head enough to tell the story.

(3A) New Prairie (1-0)
2007 (23-7), 2006 (31-4), 2005 (21-10), 2004 (26-4)

NEW CARLISLE:  When New Prairie beat Crown Point 3-2 to start the season, they got a couple of breaks but they also showed quite bit.  Junior pitcher Olivia Finldey, who was 14-6 with an 0.49 ERA and 149 strikeouts in 2007, seems like a pitcher you can hit, but the record shows that might be a mistake.  Findley was 9-0 with a 0.88 ERA as a freshman on New Prairie's state finals team in 2006.  The Cougars also welcomed in freshman shortstop Taylor Grimm, who was 2-for-3.  Grimm and catcher Brooke Fedder are going to be solid four-year players for New Prairie, and with Findley, this team has more than a 50-50 chance to be at the regional vying for a state finals berth.  The Cougars have beaten Crown Point three years in a row, and while they do play in a 2A-3A league, they also schedule 6-8 4A schools, not to mention 3A private schools Marian and St. Joseph's.  Are they really 101-25 in the last four years?  New Prairie's neighbor and rival is 4A LaPorte, but I think New Prairie is going to be better.