Kent-Meridian High School senior Lerina Joel knows her way around a bat and ball. She grew up playing slowpitch softball and her father played baseball.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In 2014, Joel’s cousin, Bertha Tulensru, then a senior on K-M’s fastpitch team, encouraged Joel to try out the sport.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
With her slowpitch experience, Joel was able to pick up fastpitch fairly quick.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“It is similar in a way, so I kind of got the hang of it,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Tulensru provided Joel advice on the game.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“She gave me a lot of tips on what was different than fastpitch and slowpitch,” Joel said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Now in her third year on the team, Joel said she prefers fastpitch.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“It’s more intimidating than (slowpitch) softball,” she said. “The balls are much faster. It kind of gets me on the competitive side.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Joel started out playing second base.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“Last year, they switched me up to first and third base,” she said. “I like third base the most.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Joel is the only senior on the varsity squad and uses her experience to help her teammates.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“It feels good to teach the other girls the things about fastpitch that I know that they don’t know about,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Coach Tim Scott described Joel as a “silent leader.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“She likes to just go about her day and do her job well,” Scott said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In her senior season, Joel hopes to become a better player but also hopes that the team will improve.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“I hope to at least win a game because we didn’t win a game last year,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Scott, who is in his second year as the Royals coach, said he thinks the goal is attainable.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“I think if we play as well as we have been practicing we will get a win this year,” he said. “We have improved a lot since last year so hopefully this year we can get one of those wins.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In addition to Joel, returning starters for the Royals are junior Lacey Schomburg, and sophomores Lauryn Kesler, Emily Bailey, Elizabeth Elliott and Anlorey Alvarado.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Top newcomers include juniors Jazzmine James and Nathaly Florez, sophomores Deborah Tafeaga and Adriana Gomez and freshman Selina Diaz.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“I think we will have some very competitive games and will be exciting to watch,” Scott said. “We are still a very young team and are starting out the year with more experience amongst our varsity players.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Two of the newcomers have pitching experience, which Kent-Meridian has lacked in past seasons.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“Our only weakness is our overall lack of experience, but our players make up for that by working extremely hard to improve each and every day,” Scott said. “This is a fun team to coach and a program I am proud to be part of.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Elsewhere<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Kentlake<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Coach:<\/strong> Greg Kaas, first year (previously coached 11 seasons for Kentlake)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Last year’s record: <\/strong>9-9 South Puget Sound League North 4A, 12-13 overall<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Key players:<\/strong> Allyson Overall, pitcher; Ashley Hendrickson, catcher\/pitcher\/first base; Kianna Kingsley, first base; Brooke Bennett, second base\/first base; Jordan Engman, shortstop; Maddy Seumalo, utility; Maggie Brach, utility; Kalina Despain, center field<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Outlook:<\/strong> “I expect us to have fun, work harder than every team in the SPSL, and always compete,” Kaas said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Kentwood<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Coach:<\/strong> Jason Winsor, ninth year<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Last year’s record:<\/strong> 13-5 SPSL North 4A, 15-10 overall<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Key players:<\/strong> Lagi Palaita, sophomore, infield\/pitcher; Mina Sagapolutele, soph., catcher\/infield; Taylor Lott, junior, pitcher\/first base<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kent-Meridian High School senior Lerina Joel knows her way around a bat and ball. She grew up playing slowpitch softball and her father played baseball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":227,"featured_media":19940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-19939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19939"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/227"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19939"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=19939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}