Lady Shamrocks travel to North Country

Portland St. Patrick's Softball team headed to Lake Leelanau for a Softball tournament. The Shamrocks played well for the weekend, finishing 1-1 against quality opponents.

Coach Jocelyn Rockey had alot to say about the weekend. “Our team traveled to Lake Leelanau for a weekend Tournament in honor of Kris Pops, a valuable member of the LLSM softball community. This is our second year participating and we are never disappointed by competition, accommodations, or the lake view from the field! This year we played Grand Traverse Academy for game one. They are a very solid softball team with a fantastic catcher- probably the best we’ve seen this year. The GTA catcher took away some of our extension offensive plays and held us to our earned bases. We hit the ball well and really locked in to some of the fundamentals we have been working on the last few weeks. Defensively, we did a nice job of communicating and executed in critical situations. GTA went up one in the bottom of the 5th. And we knew that the sixth inning was our last. Kaitlyn Russell and Emma Weller started an exciting inning that led to an additional 7 runs (putting us ahead by 6). We closed the bottom of that inning and took a win against good competition. Lydia Meredith and Mara Schrauben both went 2-3, Samee Teachworth and Aurora Beckhold were 3-4, and Ally Florian 2-4. Irene Mackowiak added a double, and Samee Teachworth a triple and 4 RBIs

"The second game was played against Lake Leelanau St. Mary’s and again the competition was excellent. LLSM pitched a great game and our girls struggled with some of her pitches. LLSM took two runs in the first inning and three in the fifth. From there they won the game. Our highlights include two doubles by Ally Florian and Summer Russman, as well as a single by Samee Teachworth. This was a good lesson for our girls and again provided us with a focus in our practice this week. We are heading into some extremely tough league competition over the next few weeks and we know that experience is our biggest need at this time. We have athletic, hard working girls, but we are young. These tournaments are excellent for our team. With 17 players on our Varsity team, many girls are not delivered the playing time they deserve, but we (coaching staff) do our best to create a positive and focused climate. Each girl that participated today in our tournament contributed to the second place plaque we were awarded. THAT makes us happy- the growth- the positive talk from the dugout- picking each other up after a tough play or at bat- that is what makes us a solid and hard working team. Keelie and I are so proud of this team and our second place finish."

The Lady Shamrocks host the Fowler Eagles on Monday, May 6th at 4pm.