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	The Ypsilanti Courier A Heritage Newspaper Weekly Publication

Rough patch continues

Team drops to 1-7 on season after losses last week

By Bruce Mason, Special Writer

PUBLISHED: May 3, 2007

It's been a rough year for Ryan Minarik and his Ypsilanti varsity softball team.

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The varsity Lady Braves have fell to 1-7 on the year and now two of his better players have quit the team.

"It's been kind of a tough year," Minarik said. "It shouldn't have been. I thought we were going to be 10 times better than last year."

On April 23, Ypsilanti lost 11-5 to Gibraltar Carlson.

After being down by four runs, Ypsilanti pulled within one heading into the seventh inning but then Carlson reeled off five runs en route to victory.

Minarik said his team is thinking about stats, such as home runs, rather than thinking about sliding, bunting or performing the necessary small-ball tactics that will win ball games.

Fielding has been a problem too.

"We looked like a freshmen team, not even that," Minarik said. "Our Defense is just horrible."

Minarik said Ashley Fulks and Anna Inoue are pounding the ball. Fulks had a triple and couple of doubles.

"She's pounding the ball," Minarik said. "Just tattooing the ball."

Ypsilanti played Redford Union on Monday. With four girls in Virginia Beach, Minarik had to move up four players from junior varsity. And with just a month left in the season, Norma Dean was taken off the team by her mother, according to Minarik. He was asked if the situation is kind of tough on the coach.

"It's not me. It's the players. They count on you, you've been there, you leave, it puts them in a hole," he said.

Competitors like Ashley Fulks and Anna Inoue hate losing, and Minarik said the situation is "killing them right now."

"It's just not fair for them," he said. "It's going to be tough."

Bruce Mason is a freelance sports writer for The View and Courier newspapers. He can be reached at brucemason19@hotmail.com