Marble Falls softball uses tourney to get ready for district

CAPTION: Sophomore Callie Phillips (left) scores and encourages senior Cheyenne Thompson before she bats. Staff photo by Jennifer Fierro

The Marble Falls High School softball team competed at the Central Texas Turf Wars tournament hosted by Georgetown Independent School District, Leander and Jarrell Feb. 26-28.

The Lady Mustangs lost to Leander Glenn 8-5, Fredericksburg 9-4, Midland Greenwood 14-6, Baytown Goose Creek Memorial 8-0 and Cibolo Steele 16-2.

As the week started Feb. 23, head coach Alex Lozoya said he told his players they were going to compete against some quality teams that he believed would prepare the Lady Mustangs for the District 24-4A campaign.

“We got to see a little bit of everything as far as the ups and the downs and the good and the things that need some improvements and some things that were a little revealing going on,” he said.

Marble Falls had a lead 5-4 against Glenn, but the Grizzlies came back to score four in the bottom of the fourth inning for the win. Seven of the eight runs were unearned. Sophomore Callie Phillips hit a homer and junior Jocelyn Suarez hit and ran the bases well.

“Honestly I hate saying this and it’s not an excuse,” Lozoya said. “It just became bad luck — balls off the end of the bat that were just falling in between a pitcher and a catcher like little cue ball shots, choppers that were just in the middle — some bad luck plays going through. But as a whole, defensively, it was not as clean as I hoped it would be, especially with our pitching. Our pitching is going to give us chances to make plays on defense. I truly believe in the ability of our kids to go out there and make plays. They just have to come through and make a play.”

Marble Falls took a 4-0 lead against Greenwood only for the Rangers to tie it in the bottom of the second inning and then took the lead at 7-4 in the third inning before the Lady Mustangs plated two in the fourth inning inning to trim the deficit to 7-6.

But Greenwood scored seven runs in the final inning.

The coach noted that at 8-6 the Lady Mustangs “struggled to get that last stop to get off the field.”

“There were plays that were playable that should have been made that we just couldn’t,” he said.

The competition at this tournament was what Lozoya thought it would be.

“We’re very fortunate that we get to see a very good pitching to prepare our hitters for what we’re going to see in district,” he said.

At one time, as many as seven freshmen were on the field for Marble Falls.

“Our message to the kids was ‘this is this is part of the meetings that we had before the season where we have to accelerate the learning curve,'” Lozoya recalled said. “Because I truly believe in this group of 14 kids, the ability is there, the talent is there. They just don’t have the experience and the only way to get them the experience is by going out there and competing against teams that I feel are better than us to help us get better. And I don’t mean better as in talent or ability. But better as in they’ve been there before, they have the experience of playing against quality pitching.”

Marble Falls begins District 24-4A play at Taylor Tuesday, March 3, with the junior varsity playing at 5 p.m. and the varsity at 7 p.m.

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