Viking girls winning with young team

by G.E. Twine
     
     REGION - Not quite halfway through the season, the Oxford Hills girls' softball team has a record of 5 wins and 1 loss.
     On Wednesday, April 30, the girls' suffered their first defeat against Lewiston, 13 to 3. On Thursday, May 1, they defeated Leavitt, 14 to 4, and on Friday, May 2, Edward Little, 7 to 4.
     On Wednesday, May 7, after the Advertiser Democrat's deadline, the girls played, away, at Cony High School, one of the top teams in the league and it promised to be a good match up.
     Tomorrow, Friday, at 4 p.m., Oxford Hills plays away again, this time at Skowhegan.
     "We don't usually play them, so this is a crossover game," said Head Coach Cindy Goddard, about the Skowhegan game. "They've had a traditionally strong program. We lost to them in the playoffs last year. So we're going to try to play our best softball."
     Their next home game is at 4:00 p.m., May 12, at home, at the Don Gouin Athletic Complex in South Paris against Cony.
     The Lady Vikings only loss so far this season was against Lewiston. As of Monday, May 5, both Oxford Hills and Lewiston had one loss and Cony had not been beaten, so the Vikings are in the top echelon in the Southern Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference.
     After graduating a large group of seniors, six players are back from last year's team.
     "I think our strengths this year are hitting," Goddard said. "We've been getting good batting performance from Mindy Rugg, Teira Durgin, Emmylou Blake and Lana Wheeler - they have been hitting well. We want to improve our outfield and defensive play in general."
     This year's team is fairly young. Goddard says that it's been about having the girls feel comfortable about the people they play with.
     "Lewiston really hit the ball well and we could not hit the ball at all," Goddard said about the Viking's recent loss. "Their pitcher did a nice job and we really didn't hit the ball and they definitely did. I credit Lewiston with doing a good job. We didn't hit the ball as well as we normally could against them. They were hitting the ball and doing all the right things defensively. They didn't make very many errors and we hurt ourselves because we made a few errors. At this level, when you make quite a few errors, the competition is good enough that you're probably going to lose."