With the calendar flipping to May, it's postseason time for the Three Rivers softball team as the Raiders look for a trip to the NJCAA National Tournament for the second straight year.
"The sophomores that went to the national tournament last year know that it's go-time now," Raiders coach Jeff Null said. "The freshmen on the team aren't really freshmen anymore after going through the grind of region play so they should know what to expect in the next few days."
The Raiders will face State Fair first in the Region XVI Tournament hosted by St. Charles. Three Rivers took three out of four against the Roadrunners in the regular season.
"Their ace (Kennidi Harris) pitched well in the game they beat us," Null said. "The biggest thing about State Fair is they can hit. We need to make sure we don't give them any extra outs."
Harris finished the regular season with a 3.77 ERA and 72 strikeouts. In her start against the Raiders back on April 19, she struck out six as the Roadrunners narrowly took the game 8-7 via the walk-off hit. Offensively, State Fair has four players hitting over .300 with at least 50 at-bats.
As for the Raiders, they can swing the bats as well with six players that have an average of .300 or better, led by Karlye Happold sporting a .467 average, an on-base percentage of .529 and slugging .820.
In the circle, Alyson Marcum comes in with a 2.10 ERA and 100 strikeouts.
"Alyson has been throwing the ball very well recently," Null said. "Makale Floyd will be unavailable for the postseason, which was a big hit for us. So Alyson will be throwing a lot of innings for us."
As for the rest of the field, Null said that the region title could go either way up and down the region.
"Our region is pretty balanced top to bottom this year," Null said. "We're also all in the same boat not being able to practice or get games in with the rain recently. We were able to scrimmage (Wednesday) on the field before it started raining, but other than that, we haven't been able to get on the field much."
Three Rivers and State Fair will square off at 11:15 a.m. Saturday morning at Maryville University.
The Raiders are the Third seed with a record of 15-9 against region opponents. Ahead of Three Rivers in the double-elimination tournament is Crowder with the top seed followed by Jefferson.
The region champion travels to play the Region XI champion for the Midwest District championship on May 13-15 for a spot in the national championship.
Robert Augsdorfer - Daily American Republic