The Stevens Point Area Senior High Special Sports softball team earned the gold medal at the recently completed Special Olympics Outdoor Sports Tournament held in Eau Claire Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 4-5. The SPASH team competed in Division 3, played three games on Saturday and in the gold medal game on Sunday.
SPASH was able to put West Allis away, 17-0, Saturday morning with some great defense and solid hitting. Coach Dick Jones cited the solid defensive play of Ashley Zblewski and Becky Disher's fine job in a relief pitching appearance, along with Lissa Hudek's catching as some of the defensive highlights of the game. The hitters were treated to lots of quality pitches, and responded with 24 hits, including four each by Zblewski and Ray Tepp. Tepp also had a home run.
Due to the extremely hot conditions, officials limited the length of the remaining games in the tournament to 40 minutes, rather than one hour. Co-coach Jeff Tepp said he felt this put some pressure on the team to score early, but they responded nicely.
Kenosha was the next opponent for the Panthers. Kenosha had some timely hitting early to jump out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning. Ryan Rozak prevented Kenosha from jumping out to a bigger lead with a relay throw to Tepp, who was covering home, to end the inning. "Teams just shouldn't run on that kid's arm," Jones said.
SPASH scored six runs in its half of the inning with homers from Tepp and Rozak, and an RBI from Levi Rahm. The game ended after two innings due to the time limit, with SPASH winning, 9-2. Sam Pflugardt and Mary Hagen provided some fine outfield play to hold down the powerful lefties on the Kenosha team.
SPASH's archrivals, the Eau Claire Eagles, were the final opponent on Saturday, with a trip to the gold medal game at stake.
The SPASH players showed patience at the plate, putting runners on with walks and scoring them with hits from Steve Mence and Tepp to jump out to a 4-0 lead, while batting through the entire order. The Eagles were unable to get anything going against the Panthers in their half of the first due to stellar play from Rozak at shortstop and Robert Lohman at first.
The Panthers batted around again in the second inning, scoring another five runs, highlighted by Lohman's two-run triple and Paul Steinfort's triple. Tepp shut the Eagles down in the final half-inning for the shutout with a fine job from catcher Nicole Lukasavage.
In the gold medal game the Panthers were up against the Kenosha Premier once again. The Premier had plenty of runners on base in the first inning, but scored only once. The Panthers once again scored early, with four runs earned in the first inning.
The Premier came back to tie the game in the top of the second. After the first out, Rozak, the Panthers' shortstop, had to leave the game due to dehydration. This forced a realignment of the defense, putting Mence at short for his first real test. He responded with a running, bobbling catch of a pop-up to end the inning.
The offense then loaded the bases for Mence, who responded with a triple to right, to put the Panthers up by three. Steinfort then hit Mence in as the 40-minute time limit expired with SPASH winning 9-4.
Mence was a monster from the plate throughout the tournament, recording a hit in every at-bat.
Co-coaches Jones and Tepp were both pleasantly surprised with the improvement the team made throughout the year, considering there were 10 new players, several who had never held a bat. Both agreed the hard work the team put into practice, along with the strong leadership from Ray Tepp and Rozak showed at the end of the season. "It was really nice to see us go from a two- or three-person team early in the season, to a team in which everyone could be counted on," said Jones.
"I was happy to see the kids work together and have fun, which is always our top goal. The growth in both ability and confidence, along with all the smiles makes it worthwhile," Jeff Tepp said. One smile missing over the weekend was that of Stacey Trezbiatowski, who was unable to make the trip after working hard all year.