As the 25-game Athletes Unlimited Softball League season moves on, the standings are pretty tight. Three of the six teams will have a shot to play for the championship at the end, with the second and third-seeded teams competing in a play-in game.
There are 14 regular-season games remaining for the Carolina Blaze (6-5), and nine of those are road games. Holding the third-place spot in the AUSL, the team has some crucial opportunities ahead to maintain its standing in the postseason race.
In order for the Blaze to have a solid chance to end the season in College Station, Texas, their complementary game will have to find consistency throughout. In Saturday’s 6-1 win over the Utah Talons, that was on display. Carolina looked like a team equipped to make a run in the back half and finish strong.
Even though the Blaze lost the series to the Talons, there was major improvement in the pitching staff’s total body of work. They held Utah to three runs each in games one and two, and finished with one run allowed in the series finale. Seven runs across 22 innings, because game one went to extra innings, is as solid as you could ask for.
Karlyn Pickens and Aleshia Ocasio have been consistent throughout the first half of the season. The series with the Talons showed that the rest of the staff is making strides as well. Carolina will need a solid effort from the pitching staff as a whole to finish strong. Blaze head coach Kara Dill spoke on how she knew the ability was there.
“We have had it in there,” Dill said. “We’ve known it’s been in there. So to see that and to see them perform, and all of them perform really well with what they’re good at, man, that’s a tough step to prepare for when you’re having to face six different arms who can do completely different things.”
When all are their best selves, that is a tough staff to prepare for. Emma Lemley and Jala Wright haven’t had the start to the season they had hoped for, but both combined to keep Utah to three runs in game two with only one earned run. The only problem with that game was they couldn’t outpitch Montana Fouts, who kept the Blaze scoreless.
“We had a couple opportunities to give them some lanes where they could get a little bit of momentum, a couple innings for Lem, a couple innings for Jala yesterday, and then Lele’s been solid for us,” Dill said on Saturday. “Karlyn’s been solid for us. Getting Keilani a couple at-bats, a couple innings, is great for us too, just that better mindset that she has. So I’m feeling good about the pitching staff going forward for sure.”
Ocasio, along with Pickens, has anchored the staff since opening night. The story was the arms behind them starting to find their footing.
Lemley was a standout during her career at Virginia Tech with 68 career wins and 849 strikeouts over 640.1 innings. Last season, she finished her Blaze rookie season with a record of 2-3 with an ERA of 5.60. Friday against the Talons, she pitched four strong innings with three runs (one earned) allowed.
“We had Lem last year, and she came right off of the college season,” Dill said on Friday. “It’s different when you’re throwing bullpens for 10 months and then coming into games and competing against hitters again, not to mention some of the best hitters in the world. So finding that rhythm with her, she had some great pitches today. That first inning was a little bit troublesome for our defense, but outside of that, she threw some great pitches. She worked two times through that order, which is a great offense.”
Wright’s outing told a similar story. Once she settled in and started working the zone, the swing-and-miss stuff that’s made her a problem for hitters showed up. She tossed three hitless innings and struck out four.
“And then Jala coming in, when she throws in the zone, and she knows it too, it’s what we’ve been working on,” Dill said. “When she has the ability to throw it in the zone, she is tough to square up. She is super tough to square up with that drop and the change. They’re super deceptive, so she did a really good job of that today.”
That is the kind of weekend that can change how a staff sees itself. For Dill, a huge point of the series was finding out who could step up behind Pickens and Ocasio, and she got some answers. The Blaze also has veteran Keilani Ricketts, who has carved out the relief role with the only save this staff has on the season.
Across seven appearances and 12.2 innings, Ricketts has punched out 10 against just 3 walks. The 4.42 ERA and team high seven hit batters show a mixed bag of results, but the strikeout-to-walk ratio says the stuff still plays. As the lone lefty on the staff she gives Dill a look no one else can.
“I think what we’re taking away from this is a pitching staff, which we had coming in, and we were kind of looking for that outside of Karlyn throwing for us,” Dill said. “Who are going to be the ones that step up? We know everybody has great stuff on our staff.
“It’s how do we pair them? How do we put them in positions to be successful? How do we give them some lanes where they can maximize what they do well? Today gave us a chance to see that out of both of them, which absolutely will give us some confidence and momentum moving forward.”
