SYA Xplosion Takes Third in National Tournament

At just 10 years old, eleven girls from the Northern Virginia area recently packed up their cleats and headed towards Cary, N.C., for one of the most heartfelt tournaments of their budding careers. With only a five game guarantee going into the tournament and seven days for them to prove themselves nationally, SYA Xplosion muscled out eleven games and a final four title at the 2011 Pony Nationals. 

Competing in the 10u (10 and under) age bracket, the team opted to play an extra pool-play game against the [New] Jersey Bandits, which didn’t affect the SYA Xplosion directly, but would have a domino effect on the elimination seeding. With five brackets of six teams each the tournament is designed to ensure that everybody avoids playing teams they already saw in the tournament for their original elimination game. As the loser and winner bracket are formed however, common teams are given the opportunity to either rise or fall accordingly.

With 19 teams battling for the same title as champions Northern Virginia represented with two final four titles (the Loudoun Storm brought home the second place trophy) and Virginia as a whole represented with three of the final four teams. The Riptides 2000 from Richmond won the 2011 Pony national championship.

The tournament began with an opening ceremony that brings all of the age groups together for a parade and team pride, involving moon bounces, water gun courses, playgrounds and dunk tanks. Coach Jorden volunteered for the dunk tank and was soaked through the remainder of the festivities.

Early in the week Sarah Flint, age ten, showed great poise on the mound. Starting and closing games as needed she helped saved the arms of other pitchers and did her fair share of defensive aid. Without such a great “do your job” attitude from Sarah, the pitching would have been left to Nicole Purtell, Emma Yates, and Victoria Figueroa.

Emma Yates, not only a phenomenal pitcher, but also starting catcher for the SYA Xplosion pitched in a few very critical moments of the tournament along with Victoria Figueroa. Although Victoria only began pitching this past season she was able to move her way quickly through the pitching line-up to start against our hometown rivals the Loudoun Storm (who took second). Between Victoria, Emma, and Sarah an average of 54% strikes were thrown with an ERA of 3.7 and 23 2/3 innings.

Nicole Purtell, led the pitching staff for the 2010-2011 10u season with whopping 68% strikes of pitches thrown and over 3,400 pitches. In 146 innings for the year she threw 2,312 strikes; leveling to be 132 strike outs with only 31 given walks. For the 2011 Pony Nationals young Nicole pitched 31 1/3 innings over the eleven games played (six innings each) with four wins , 20 strike outs, and 5 walks.

As a whole the ladies managed to pull a team batting average of .300 (.331 in Bracket Play; .244 in Pool Play). Eight doubles and four triples for the week the girls impressed not only the parents but the coaches with their focus and intent to win. Nicole Purtell, Lacy Hunter, and Kiaya Jeusi batted over .400 consistently for the tournament followed by Emma Yates who batted over .400 in bracket play and Olivia Mock who batted over .400 in pool play.

Emma Yates, Victoria Figueroa, Lacey Hunter, Jada Booth, Nicole Purtell, and Lindsey Fischkelta all exhibited a great aspiration to help their teammates out batting over .300 with an OPS (on base and slugging) percentage of .790 for the season. These girls supported their peers by adding to the 35 doubles and 10 triples of the season with 226 bases stolen.

One of the highlights was in a game against the Ashburn Shooting Stars. In the bottom of the sixth inning with only one at bat left for the SYA Xplosion the bottom of the line-up led off. Lindsey Fischkelta began the rally of a lifetime with four straight singles to follow her at bat. Emma Yates came up to the plate with two outs and had two strikes on her when she hit a 2 RBI single to win the game 7-6 in a come-back inning that started 6-2.

The SYA Xplosion had a wonderful season with right fielders Grace Smallwood and Sarah Flint making many assists to the second basemen (Jada Booth and Olivia Mock). Centerfielders Victoria Figueroa and Lacey Hunter saved a numerable amount of runs; leftfielder Lindsey Fischkelta demonstarted maximum effort by diving for balls along with great back up on third base, causing a handful of very close plays. Elizabeth Corcoran 7 (Shortstop/outfielder) also demonstrated solid defensive skills.

The team fielded a percentage of .900, which matched the teams seasons tournament average as well. Prouder coaches couldn’t be possible for the team that came together as a family to play nineteen games above .500 ball with 41 wins and 22 losses for the year.

Xplosion Fastpitch is a select travel softball program organized under the umbrella of the Softball program. The Xplosion program trains year round and plays tournaments in the fall, spring and summer. The first Xplosion team took the field in September 2001. At this time we are seven teams strong and are continuing to expand and improve our program each year. Each team’s objective is to play in at least one national tournament.

The 2010-2011 10U Xplosion team is coached by the head coach Jay Booth and assistant coaches Paul Mock, Jorden Booth and Randy Yates. This year’s team played in 15 tournaments, took home three championships, four second-place and five third-place finishes. This team has been the most successful 10U team of the Xplosion program and in September they will be move up to the 12U division.

By Jorden Booth