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Batter up! Lady Vikes begin practice for 2007 season
Vikes will head to Phoenix for tournament action Mar. 2-3

Freshman Darrian Quasula keeps her eye on the ball during practice Feb. 22.

Freshman Darrian Quasula keeps her eye on the ball during practice Feb. 22.

The Lady Vikes made a good show of themselves against Salome in a scrimmage held Feb. 24. The boys' team fared just as well, according to Vikes Coach Phillip Echeverria, who said scrimmage games are geared toward finding strengths and weaknesses in players and not for keeping track of score. Echeverria coaches the boys' team, while Tristen Heisley coaches the girls' team.

The Williams High School girls' varsity team looks to be in pretty good shape for 2007, though they got off to a late start. Coach Tristen Heisley, assistant basketball coach for Denis Kirkley, stayed on with boy's basketball for a while longer than normal after the hoopsters became 2A North champions and went to the state championship. The girls are on track now, however, and hitting the field for practice regularly. Positions on the team have not yet been identified, though Heisley said he hopes to have them assigned within a week or two.

"Next week we have a Phoenix Country Day tournament, six games," said Heisley. "We have four games on Saturday, two games on Friday. It's going to be a long week, we should know by then," he reported.

Heisley said the varsity team did pretty well last year and hopes to improve their standings this year. Last year, according to Heisley, the Lady Vikes made it to state before getting bumped out of the competition. This is Heisley's first year coaching the girl's team. He's joined by assistant coaches Tim Pettit, Edgar Brown and Bob Fogg. WHS student Jade Schwarts manages the Lady Vikes.

"We should be pretty good this year, our only question mark right now is pitching," said Heisley. "I'm expecting us to be pretty good. This year we have a whole new batch of pitchers."

A number of varsity students are returning to the girls' team this year, according to Heisley.

"Kassie and Jenise Pettit, Amanda Bean, (they) played a lot of varsity last year, those are probably the three leaders right now that we're going to lean on a lot," Heisley said. Altogether there are 24 girls on the roster for the new season.

Keep on running

The girls were spread throughout the field, and in another field, during a recent practice session Feb. 22. They ran the length of the field and back again, kicking up a spray of dust in their wake. The sun shone down on the batters' eyes as they took turns at bat, which didn't stop one Lady Vike from getting a homer in. Heisley said the girls will run, and run often, during practice to keep them in shape.

"We do a lot of running at the start at least and then they'll throw for about 20 minutes to each other, throw ground balls to each other, and we usually we start doing some groundwork, pop flies, batting and then at the end they wrap it up with more running," said Heisley.

Both the girls and boys teams will head to Phoenix next to take part in the Phoenix Country Day tournament. The Vikes will face off against Bourgrade High School March 2, followed by Arizona Lutheran High School March 3. Games begin at 11:45 a.m., 3:15 p.m., 8 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1:15 p.m. Another game is also tentatively scheduled for 3 p.m. The Vikes first home game is scheduled for March 6 against Sedona. Times for the game are 2 p.m. (for varsity action) and 4 p.m. (for junior varsity).


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