Big Red jumps on Oak Glen early
King fans eight, records 400th career strikeout in the victory
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NEW MANCHESTER -- A veteran coach like Gus DiMarzio knows getting an early lead can be key, especially against an opponent that is trying to find its confidence.
His Big Red did just that on Tuesday night, plating four runs in the top of the first inning, which proved to be more than enough to take a 7-2 road victory at Oak Glen.
"Starting well is extremely important no matter who you're playing," said DiMarzio, whose team won for the fourth time in five outings. "You want to start fast, because if you start fast, then the game keeps snowballing for you. If you start slow, you're catching up and sometimes it's too late. We started fast, but we should have finished better than we did.
"We started well, then we kind of got in a lull. Sometimes you have to develop that killer instinct, you have to keep fighting and scratching to get the runs in. We weren't doing that (toward the end of the game). We'll work on that."
Jules King, Big Red's senior ace, reached a milestone in battling off the Golden Bears' dangerous lineup, fanning eight batters to reach her 400th career strikeout. She needed just 43 games to hit the mark.
She allowed just three hits and put up zeroes in the final five innings. King was also 3 for 4 at the plate with an RBI.
"She battled the whole way," DiMarzio said. "She missed some spots the last couple games … but she keeps fighting and comes back and gets the next out. I've said it before, you think maybe she didn't have her best one day and look at the box score and she (pitched really well). When she's on she makes it look so easy, you don't realize how good she is even when she's not got her best stuff.
"She hit her 400th strikeout in 43 games, that's close to an average of 10 a game. That's pretty impressive."
Despite Oak Glen falling to 3-7 on the young season, Big Red knew they were going to be a challenging opponent with the power in the lineup.
"They're still a very good team," DiMarzio said. "They might be going through a little bit of a funk, everyone goes through it from time to time, we went through one last year … they'll find it and when they do, they're going to be very hard to beat.
"They have a very challenging lineup. The Brown sisters (Sydney and Sarah), (Olivia) Munoz, they're good players and you have to be ready to play when you play them."
For Golden Bears coach Sherrie Garner and company, the early hole was just simply too much against a quality opponent like Big Red.
"We got in a big hole, but the girls were able to stay in there and put the ball in play," Garner said. "We struck out too many times to manufacture enough runs, but the girls gave effort.
"(Big Red) is a good team, it's a good matchup for us. Jules does a good job, she's got 400 strikeouts now so congrats to her, and they have a nice group behind her. It's good for us to see a team like that, hopefully we keep getting better and when we see them again, we can make it a battle."
A bright spot for the Bears was, after the tough start, young pitcher Maddie Murray settled in and was able to slow Big Red down to give the bats a chance to wake up.
"Maddie did a nice job of working through it and going the distance," Garner said. "She is young and she's learning, I'm proud of the way she overcame the start and hit her spots."
Emily Tuttle had a single, double and an RBI for Big Red, while Sena Smith, Paige Matteson and Hillary Rauch each plated runs.
Murray and Olivia Munoz had an RBI each for Oak Glen.
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Big Red 7, Oak Glen 2
Big Red 4-1-1 0-0-1 0 – 7 9 0
Oak Glen 1-1-0 0-0-0 0 – 2 3 2
BIG RED (4-1): King (WP, CG, 2R, 2ER, 3H, 8K, 2BB) and Boley. King 3S, RBI; Bowman S; Tuttle S, D, RBI; Smith S, RBI; Rauch S, RBI; Matteson RBI; Beall S.
OAK GLEN (3-7): Murray (LP, CG, 6R, 5ER, 9H, 2K, 3BB) and Sa. Brown. Sy. Brown S; Munoz RBI; Smth S; Murray S, RBI.