Bottom of the table weekend

Royals softball looks to capitalize on easy weekend

By Davie Wong, Sports Editor

They say that there are no such things as an easy weekend in sports. Sure, there may be weak teams, but every team has a chance of beating you. Or so they say. Reality is a bit different. Sometimes there are teams that are just nowhere near another team in terms of skill. That’s what the Royals have ahead of them this weekend and going into early next week.

The team will be hosting the Shoreline Community College squad on Saturday. While the Royals have looked dominant, the SCC team has looked the opposite. They’ve struggled almost everywhere in the game. Although the team averages 3.25 runs a game, they give up 10 plus runs a game. Their best pitcher has an ERA of 8.12. Nearly eight runs on average. That’s enough to straight mercy the team if SCC fails to get any runs. Think about it—an average game for their best pitcher is still a mercy loss. And it looks just as bad as it sounds.

When the two teams meet, it’s probably going to be a massacre in the Royals’ favor. However, with both teams expecting that, I can see the Royals throwing a curve ball or two and trying some new things. After Keeley Ainge threw 135 pitches on Saturday of the last week, maybe Michelle Peters will give her a day off. Maybe Peters will rotate the batting lineup or try some new fielding arrangements. Whatever it is, I really can’t see the team losing any games here. I’m betting 2–0 in 10 innings.

On Tuesday, the team will be travelling to do battle against Olympic College. OC has been the better of the bad teams in the North Division. They’ve shown bright flashes of brilliances in some of their games, but bad is still bad. While they’ve been able to drag out the scoreboard with scoring of their own, they’ve been unable to keep runs of the board. They’re on the higher end of 9 allowed per game, while scoring about 7 of their own. The midweek match will be a test for the Royals’ schedules, but that’s about all it’ll test. The Royals pitchers may want to be on their guard, but as long as they play even half as good as they’ve played to start the year so far, it should be an easy win.

The Royals should grab both games in 14 innings. A mercy win would be nice, but it’s going to be hard to keep Olympic College off the scoreboard. With that, the Royals should be up 4–0 at the end of both games, and 8–0 on the season.