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All-KCAC Honors
Softball slips to 17-28, tie for 6th
Expectations were running high as the Lady Bulldogs entered the 2005 season. The pre-season polls of both the media and the KCAC coaches tabbed McPherson for a second place finish in the conference race.
Having ended their 2004 season with an 8-8 KCAC record and fifth place finish, the Lady Bulldogs were returning five starters, three of whom received post-season conference recognition. Add in what coach Mike McCormick felt was his deepest recruiting class in the program’s five years of intercollegiate play, and the table appeared to be set.
After an abbreviated fall season, during which the emphasis was on finding which of the younger, more inexperienced players were ready to step up to the competitive level of the collegiate game, and after the cancellation of two February opening dates in February due to foul weather, the Lady Bulldogs finally got their spring season underway the first week of March.
After dropping its season opener to Morningside College, McPherson went 3-2 in its own invitational tournament. The following weekend, the Bulldogs went 2-3 at the Kansas Wesleyan Classic. A non-conference doubleheader split and another 3-2 tournament, this time at Sterling College, left McPherson with a 9-9 record heading into KCAC play.
The Lady Bulldogs began their spring break with a KCAC doubleheader sweep of Ottawa. But, the remainder of their week away from the classroom resulted in a 2-6 record on a trip to the Kansas City area for games at Park University, Rockhurst University, and the Avila University tournament.
“I hoped we would build our confidence with some wins heading into the conference, but we didn’t to the extent I hoped,” said coach Mike McCormick. “It seemed we found a new way to let a lead or a game get away each time out.”
Now 13-15 on the season, the Bulldogs split three straight conference doubleheaders during which two of the Bulldogs’ three losses were of the one-run variety. “We just kept finding a way to let them get away.”
Entering the final two weeks of the regular season, McPherson, now 5-3 in the KCAC, was in position to control its own destiny in the conference race as the next ten days would have doubleheaders against the four teams who stood ahead of the Bulldogs in the scramble for positions in the post-season tournament bracket.
Only a Senior Night doubleheader with cross-town rival Central Christian College, which turned into a single game win when a storm blew into town, broke up their Bulldogs’ final stretch run. Disappointingly, the run was a dry one as McPherson dropped all eight conference games, falling from third to 6th place in the standings.
As the Bulldogs entered the KCAC post-season tournament, 5-11 in the conference and 17-26 overall, it appeared the wind had gone out of the Bulldogs’ sails. In their tournament opener, McPherson took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first, but then kicked the ball around, committing four errors in giving up five runs to host Bethany in bottom half of the inning. While both teams had opportunities to score, including bases loaded situations, neither could break through and the Bulldogs dropped into the losers’ bracket with the 5-2 loss. Four more errors were key in McPherson’s 3-1 season ending, losers’ bracket loss against the University of Saint Mary.
“This (season) was disappointing; for our players, for me, and for the folks following us. I thought, and seemingly other people did too, that we would be a better team than this. All season, we seemed to struggle getting focused on the task at hand and then maintaining that focus for a full seven innings or a doubleheader. We were still pretty young (only three seniors), but I really thought our mental toughness would be better than it was; especially, after watching the girls play while we were recruiting them and then last fall.”
McPherson College’s Matapony Collette, Darci Davison, Jamie Schropp, and Crystal Richardson were named to the 2005 All-KCAC second team in a vote by the conference’s coaches. Sarah Mauck, Ellie Miller, Christa Blose, Jessica DeCavelle, and Tara Loyd each received honorable mention all-conference recognition.
“I was pleased all three of our seniors received some type of all-league recognition. Tappy (Collette) and Crystal (Richardson) have started for us for four years. They’ll be hard to replace, and Tara (Loyd) came back from a knee injury to help us out this year”
“Now, our younger players are going to have to step up, make some decisions about whether they were satisfied with this year, and if not, then go to work improving their skills, and in turn, the team as a whole.”
“They will, and we will!”
