Coaches Corner for July 16th: Lindsey Hyman, Boone Softball

Joining us on Coaches Corner, KWBEG, we're going to talk some boon softball. Is Lindsay Hyman joining us? Torridors had season come to an end at North Polk in the regional final. We'll talk more about that in a few. And I just kind of gave Lindsay the inside joke, and that is, a week ago right now, Lindsay, we were talking about, hey, first round of regionals get started, and Carol's going to come to boon tonight. And man does a week go fast. Yeah, 100%. It's hard to even wrap my head around that it's been just one week since we played, Carol. It certainly went very fast this week. Always, always does. Well, that was a great start, Lynn. We're going to start with that, actually, because Carol was your first round opponent come to town. I know the one thing that can always be a little concerning. You didn't mention it last week, so maybe the girls, and maybe I'm wrong on this, but man, when you have played somebody already twice during the season and you really got a couple of nice wins, you got to refocus. It's brand new, isn't it? Yeah, 100%. Just talking to some past coaches, you can't overestimate anybody, especially a team that you've seen already twice. Upsets can happen at any point, and so you had to come in ready and prepared, and we had to execute, and we were able to do just that against the team we had seen twice already. Lindsay, did it help to get a couple of runs early in the bottom of the first? Does that help the nerves a little bit, not just the players, but maybe coach just a little bit? No, 100% always. Anytime you can score first, sets the tone, lets you go. But this team has been really interesting. We've had some games where we had to come back late in the game, and they have been able to do that. So you know across the board, if we score early, we can certainly score late, too. Well, Bingham had a nice night. Fourier was two for three, had a couple of base hits, and an RBI. And the neat thing that I thought was you guys kind of spread things out, which you have really done during the season as well. Brooke had an RBI. No Kaylee had one as well. Harper with an RBI. And then a little bit of a surprise, because I wasn't sure what you were going to do pitching wise. And when we got done talking, I thought, I never even asked Lindsay, what is the pitching idea here tonight? You went with the eighth grader, and Tendley had a good night. Yeah, absolutely. Tendley throws really hard. She really has come on in her confidence and just what she's able to do. She's going to be an absolute force here. When we had thrown her against them before, they were not able to keep up with her. So we anticipated if we can just keep Brooke rested, she would prefer that. And so we went with just kind of hoping to overpower them a little bit and keep Brooke ready to roll for the next two, and it worked out. Well, and then let's talk about the next one, because we went from an opponent that we absolutely knew and had already played twice during the season to a team we had never played. So Lindsay, what did you do from Thursday night to Saturday night to kind of learn some information on Sergeant Bluff? Yeah, they are obviously a long, long ways away from us. We just did a little film session with our crew to make sure that we were ready for them. They had a couple girls that back from the left side, they're playing on some turf, their pitcher. We were trying to figure out kind of what she was all about and if we were going to be able to hit her. So just as a team, we just kind of sat down, looked at their stats. It's hard because we don't know a ton of their opponents, but you can learn a little bit from watching a lot of game film. And so we did just that. We came in ready to go mentally, physically, and I was just so proud of what they were able to do up against Sergeant Bluff on Saturday night. Well, four runs in the top of the first inning. If you're noticing a little bit of a theme here, you guys score early and that was huge because Sergeant Bluff Luton came back with four of their own in the next two innings. Lindsay, as you go into the dugout and it's four to four after two, what's the dugout mood like? Yeah, it's really interesting you said that because I mean, man, we came out so hot in that game. We, base is loaded, just came, we came ready to hit. When we were tied for four, I don't know if you saw this really interesting play and it's one I'm gonna think about a lot. We had runners on first and third and we had Tenley at first and we had McKinsey on third and I had called a steal. And we've been working on kind of just staying in, staying in it, trying to get that run scored. And Sergeant Bluff has, when we were watching game film, they had a couple of different plays on that that we were anticipating. So I told McKinsey, you know, stay here, stay close. Like I'm anticipating they're gonna come at you here. And they just threw down the second, got Tenley and we walked in for the, really the game winning run. And that was an interesting moment in the game for us. So I think they were ready to go. They knew we could score late and we did. We scored another one even after that one, so. Well, and speaking of scoring late, now they didn't score late, but Lindsay, the seventh inning got a little interesting, didn't it? Oh boy, yeah, talk about building some grit. I was completely nervous in that one, but we pulled her out. I mean, base is loaded, one down, you're singing to yourself, come on, we can do this and pop up to second base. Ava knocked that one out, got two down, and then an incredible catch by her out in right field. So really proud of her pulling that one off and sacrificing herself for that. Obviously not a close ride home. What was that one like on Saturday night? I don't know, I think around 1 a.m. And our parents have just been so incredible. The Boone community is just a great place to live and to work and to coach, honestly. Our parents had arranged for a supper for us quickly at a local pizza place. So we just went and grabbed some pizza and drove back and they were tired probably more emotionally than physically, but that dugout on that turf was the sun was right in our face and people don't understand when you're sitting with the sun on you and that heat, what it can take a toll on. So our girls just, they were so tough and they just played and they're really talented and they're proud of them. Well, and then you go from familiar to not familiar to familiar and you get Northpoke once again. And here's the crazy part. I didn't get a chance to tell you this. It was almost exactly one year to the day that Boone and Northpoke played last year in the regional championship. It was actually on the 15th of July last year. Of course, this year you guys had a chance to play on that Monday, which was the 13th. So tell me about what was the mindset going in? What was the scouting report and how much did you talk about Northpoke or was it more about Boone on Monday? Yeah, good question. So the Northpoke pitcher is not going to overpower you by any means, but her changeup has been causing us trouble. So we worked just quite a bit on making sure we could handle her changeup a little bit better. I'm not sure that we were completely successful in that, but we did get, throughout the game we got better and better at just laying off of it. I think at one point she was throwing 50% changeups on us the other night. So that's definitely growth area. The other thing Northpoke had done to us in the prior two games was they figured out our defensive scheme on bunk coverages. So we had to adjust our bunk coverages a little bit to address them laying it down on the first baseline, which I feel like we tackled pretty well. We did have one error on those, but I feel like we addressed kind of what they exposed on us the prior two games. So we were in some ways grateful for the two games prior to know what we needed to adjust to be ready to play the game. Lindsay, you guys had opportunities and this is not one of those got you moments or ha ha. You had chances, you didn't get it done. I mean, you guys had chances and I think that probably makes it even a little bit more difficult, but the reason I bring that up is you had seen Kadelka forever and she just does a fantastic job, as you said, with the changeup and she works in and out really, really well and I thought what I appreciated was it felt like this was a boon team was a little more patient that night and I'll be honest against changeup, you have to be. Yeah, 100%. The initial part, I mean, you come out, you see this slow ball coming out, you just wanna swing as hard as you can and we chased early, but you could see throughout the game they did start getting a little bit more disciplined and yeah, the chances, this is one of those games that's gonna sting probably for me for the rest of my life, but that's just how the game goes, that's why you play the game. Timely hitting matters and when you can move runs and make plays and that's why we love it so much. Well, I'll tell you what, Lindsay, there's a speech that you never prepare yourself for and that's the last speech of the season. What'd you talk to the girls about in the outfield when you guys wrap things up? Yeah, I mean, obviously we know that this is just a one-year stand for me, so I just told them that it was such a pleasure to coach each and every one of them that I had grown as a person. I was grateful for all the talent and time and efforts that they brought to the years of dedication to this sport and that the world is literally their oyster. They have so much talent coming back. They were young, we have a key injury this year that made some adjustments, which people responded well to, but next year really is going to be incredibly exciting to see what this team is able to do. They are going to be a force and I just cannot wait to be there cheering them on. Well, Lindsay, we'll talk to you next week. We'll talk all conference and just kind of get some thoughts from you from the season, but thanks for some post-season conversation here today. Absolutely, thanks for the time, Ryan. You bet, Lindsay Hyman again joining us. Boone Softball here in Coaches Corner.