First Pres off to a soaring start!

Home openers are always exciting! Every team starts with a fresh record, and it was no different on Friday night for First Presbyterian's opening night 18-7 victory over team Refuge. The team soared out of the gates, with veteran righty Hendrix and the softball team putting up two strait zero's, and scoring their limit of 5 runs in both the first and the second inning. A First Presbyterian first, Refuge did not record an out on FPC until the 2nd inning. Momentum is so important in church league ball, and with a small hiccup in the top of the 5th inning, where Refuge rallied for 6 runs, FPC was able to establish the momentum early, and regain it in the bottom of the 5th with another 5 runs.

During the top of the 5th inning, errors were an issue, as 3 of FPC's 6 errors came in that inning, but the most important thing to remember is that both teams will make errors (Refuge had 11), and a great strength of the FPC players was the recovery from those errors.

Player of the game awards go out to Bob Hendrix, who went 6 strong innings, and only gave up 1 earned run, which throwing 64 pitches (50 strikes), and Russ Thomas, who was 4 for 4, with 6 rbi's. Newcomer second base player Jaci Wolff also had a stellar first game, as she picked up 3 hits and 2 rbi's, and made several fine defensive plays in the field. Tune in next week as First Pres goes for its second win "on the road" against team "River of Life" at 6:00pm at Fort Missoula Field #5.

Games notes:

*Stat correction: Russ Thomas actually went 4 for 4. Stat tracker has him at 5-5
*Stat correction: Bob Hendrix last week was listed at 6'6'. He is actually 6'2'
*Bob Hendrix retired the first batter he faced in every inning of the game
*Katie Lamp saw 6 pitches in her at bat, which was the most pitches seen of any FPC player during one at bat
*Russ Thomas had 6 putouts (the most by the team) and 0 errors in the field
*The athletic Stacy Keogh was the 1st recorded out for First Presbyterian this season, which occurred in the 2nd inning.