Young Lady Bluehawks steadily improving

With each passing game and week, the young Thompson Falls High School girl’s softball team continues to improve and the strides Lady Bluehawks’ coach Jared Koskela has witnessed has him excited about the prospects of the future of his young club.

Thompson Falls fell to Plains 10-0 Tuesday afternoon and fell to Eureka 13-3 and 12-2 in Saturday’s doubleheader at Thompson Falls High School softball stadium.

Koskela, whose team is comprised mostly of underclassmen still learning the game after the Lady Blue hawk’s one-year hiatus from competition, said his team has showcased improvement with each passing game.

“(Against) Plains, we did well defensively but our offense just wasn’t there,” Koskela said. “We are really working on our hitting, (acquiring) quicker bat speed and getting a bat on the ball so we can get on base.”

In Saturday’s doubleheader against Eureka, the Lady Bluehawks went up against Eureka, a team that Koskela said boasted of solid pitching, and T-Falls again showcased improvement in their hitting by generating five runs in two games.

“One of the pitchers for Eureka went a full game and in both games, they had really good pitchers,” Koskela said. “We didn’t allow (either pitcher) to get a lot of strikeouts on us. We hit the ball up in the air and got a few hits.”

Koskela, whose team continues to showcase improvement in both fielding and batting, said he is working with his team to find an intermediate balance in various situations in hitting, fielding, and base running.

“In the second game, we never really got on base and with (our game) being a double-header, our team kind of wore out and dropped our heads a little bit,” Koskela said. “We did see a lot improvement given that was most of the girl’s first-ever double-header experience.”

The Lady Bluehawks’ next test will be against another established softball program. The Mission-Arlee-Charlo team is typically in the contention for an MHSA Class B-C softball bid every season and last year they placed third in the state.

Koskela, who is in the process of building a team into future state contenders, said he felt M-A-C is a perfect team for his Lady Bluehawk’s program to model itself after.

“I think (M-A-C) has a good feeder program and we will mostly want to go in and learn from them and see how they run things,” Koskela said. “(Their program) will be something to mimic because they play at a high level. We will go in there and try to learn from them and even if we come out in one of these games with a loss, we can still learn something about how to be successful. (At this stage of our program), every loss is a win for us.”