Hazelwood West Breaks Out The Big Bats In Softball Win Over Pattonville

To say Hazelwood West junior softball player Kelsey Donahue’s pitching motion is “awkward” is a bit of an understatement.

Donahue, who has developed into one of the regular starting pitchers for the Wildcats in this, her second season as a varsity player, has more herks and jerks in her windup and pitch sequence than most anybody has ever seen in any one pitcher.

At times, it even looks painful as Donahue wretches and heaves her body through every pitch she tosses.

But awkward as it is, it does produce results.

And on Tuesday afternoon, in a critical Suburban North Conference game against rival Pattonville, Donahue’s motion was an absolute thing of beauty, as she led tossed five strong innings to lead the Wildcats to a 14-3 win over the Pirates.

“No, it doesn’t hurt,” Donahue joked after the win. “My pitching coach taught me a motion. But I didn’t exactly like all of it, so I changed it, and made it my own. And I ended up with (what you see).”

Which for most looks like some kind of violent body heave toward the plate that somehow leaves batters dazed and confused and allows Donahue to somehow get people out.

“It’s something to see, I’ll give you that,” Hazelwood West head softball coach Jack Scanio said. “But I think batters get caught up in the deception of her motion and then they’re kind of caught off guard by the quality of her pitches.”

That certainly seemed to be the case on Tuesday, as Donahue mostly mowed down the Pirate batters, allowing just two runs and two hits, while striking out nine.

“Last year I was a big strikeout pitcher, but this year I really haven’t been,” Donahue said. “But in this game, I really wanted to win. So I knew I needed to get some more strikeouts.”

Those K’s helped Donahue get out of the only real trouble she faced, which came in the first inning, when she allowed Pattonville’s leadoff batter, centerfielder Kailey Utley, to reach third base with no outs.

But Donahue struck out two of the next three batters and got out of the inning completely unscathed.

“We let her off the hook in that first inning,” Pattonville coach Doug McGhee said. “Give credit to her for getting out of it, but we just didn’t do what we needed to today. I think we were really that ready to play today in this game.”

Well, the Wildcat hitters certainly were.

Especially in the bottom of the first, when West sent 11 batters to plate, and scored six of them, thanks to four basehits, a walk, two hit batters, three stolen bases, and three wild pitches.

“They took advantage of every mistake we made today,” McGhee said. “Give credit to them, but we just weren’t ready to play and they took advantage of it.”

West catcher Danielle Drone and third baseman Roxanne Dennis delivered the big hits in that first inning, both smacking RBI singles that helped the Wildcats build their initial lead.

Then in the fourth inning, after Pattonville finally got on the board, West’s Tricia Heffner drove in two runs with a hit that made the score 8-1.

Pattonville added single runs in the fifth and sixth, both on plays when a runner scored from third, while another runner was trying to steal second.

But that wasn’t nearly enough, especially once West added five runs in the bottom of the sixth to close out the game.

The final blow came on a three-run double by Emily Rousseau, which put the Wildcats over the 10-run lead limit and mercifully ended the game.

“This was a good day for the Wildcats,” Scanio said. “Everybody got to play. Everybody got to contribute. Several players had really good days. And we won a big game over a conference opponent.”

West raised its record 7-8 on the season, and 4-1 in Suburban North league play, which is third in the standings behind rivals Ritenour and McCluer North, who are both 4-0 in league play.

The Wildcats lost to Ritenour earlier this year, and will play McCluer North next week.

But first, West will get its chance to improve on its season marks with another league game on Thursday, when it hosts Riverview Gardens at 4 p.m.

Pattonville will have its own showdown with McCluer North, on Thursday, at Pattonville High School, with the first pitch for that game also scheduled for 4 p.m.

Scoring Summary

Score by Innings

R

H

E

Pattonville

0

0

0

1

1

1

-

3

4

1

Hazelwood West

6

0

0

2

1

5

-

14

15

3

WP: Kelsey Donahue

LP: Skyler Rodgers