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Head Games
EAGLES KEEP MIXING IT UP, TAKE ADVANTAGE OF PYSCH-TACTICS IN SEMIFINAL WIN
Lakeland softball skipper Joe Alsup showed off his master mind bending skills this past day or so by not only navigating his squad to the Division 1 state final for the third time in the last five years with a 5-2 Eagles victory over Troy in the semis on Friday but doing it by winning the game within the game with a healthy helping of psychological warfare. Coach Joe fooled the whole county, even Burney himself when on Friday morning he backed out of a previous decision on Thursday to start last season's ace, Carlee Meek in the circle instead of this season's No. 1 pitcher Michelle Stiltner in the semifinals versus Troy. When it was all said and done, it was Stiltner who got the ball in her hands, not Meek, to pitch the Eagles to the win.
Coach Joe, all I can say to you is: BRILLIANT!!!!! …………as always
The switch up followed by the double back, who would have thought?
Okay, here's how Alsup pulled the wool over all of our eyes with some last second mental gymnastics:
I called Coach Joe on Thursday afternoon for the run down on the impending semis and he personally told me that I could write about the high-profile switch in the paper, that he didn't mind if the Troy coaching staff knew about the decision on the morning of the game. I'll admit I thought at the time this scoop was too good to be true, yet how could I not go with it for my pre-game advance for Friday's paper? I mean if you were going to pull such a strategic maneuver would you want to tip your hand? In my opinion, that would take away 50 percent of the move's potential impact due to removing the element of surprise. That's just not good coaching and Coach Joe is one of the best coaches around – thus, the whole thing just didn't add up for me. So, Alsup might not admit it, but Burney thinks he was bluffing and trying to mount a mini-disinformation campaign to confuse and distract his opponents. Either way, whatever his intentions, it worked BIG TIME and the Eagles moved on to THA SHOW aka the state finals this very afternoon.
Way to go ladies! Mad props go out to Carlee Meek who took the scratch in stride and delivered a crucial RBI, as well as soph sensations, Sierra Burke (monster 2-run jack to tie things up after a bad first inning) Morgan Craft and junior Devan Olah for coming up with critical RBI in the contest too.
posted by Scott M. Burnstein at
1:54 AM
2 Comments:
i think you should get troys side. cause not all of this is true.
This is one of the worst blogs I have ever seen written. Got yourself enough Lakeland and Joe love? The entire Troy side knew it was just a bluff on the part of Joe. If he was really going to switch pitchers up for the game you think he'd go to the media with the idea? Why don't you do some intelligent reporting and talk to people involved with the Troy team and get their said as the previous comment said. They knew it was a bluff the moment it came out. If you really think that Lakeland played "head games" with Troy, you obviously weren't there to watch the game. Lakeland was baffled most of the game and it was obviously Troy with the suicide squeeze and pick-off throws (girl was clearly out at second in Lakeland's big sixth inning) that had the tricks and mind games up their sleeves. Lakeland played a great game and deserved to move on with their performance, but to see that their mind games and coaching were due to that clearly shows you weren't there to watch the game or are not very intelligent when it comes to the game of softball.
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