Thill's Breakers hand Hawks two tough losses

The Thill of victory, the agony of defeat.

Guided by the legendary Otto Thill, the man with the acerbic tongue who built Florence into a formidable softball force in the early 2000s, the Loyola Sacred Heart Breakers came into Thompson Falls last Thursday and swept a doubleheader from the Blue Hawks 10-7 and 9-0.

Complete with Thill's customary running commentary from the Breaker dugout and the third base box, the games were a lesson in the art of small-ball tactics and walking the talk while still playing the game – and were also an eye-opener for Hawk coach Jared Koskela.

"I had heard of him but had never actually seen him until Thursday," Koskela said. "It was certainly educational for me and our girls, we had not seen anything like that before."

Thill's seemingly unending stream of comments, directed at his own players as well as towards the Hawks, seemed to unsettle both sides, but maybe the Falls girls a little bit more.

The Hawks had risen above the fray of wordplay enough to take a 3-1 lead into the fourth inning of the first game before Loyola scored six runs in that inning and three more in the final two to rally to the win.

"We kind of beat ourselves in that game," Koskela said. "We out-hit Loyola but left a lot of runners on base when we should have scored, and it cost us."

Senior Dylan Vigil continued her torrid spring of softball by rapping out three hits in four at-bats to lead the Hawks offensively, smacking a double and scoring three runs. Cella VanHuss added two hits, also including a double and drove in a run.

Danni-jo VanHuss had two singles and a team-high two runs batted in, Abbi Lane also had two hits, and Cheyla Irvine and Olivia Harnett one each. MacKenzie Robinson scored a run for the Hawks.

The Hawks could never seem to figure out Loyola's freshman pitcher in the second game and Loyola moved to the 9-0 win. Harnett, the VanHuss sisters and Vigil accounted for all four of Thompson Falls' hits in the game.

Set to host Troy for a single game Friday (at 5 p.m.), the Hawks travel to Eureka for another pair of Western B-C conference games Saturday.

Koskela wants his team to get back to the basics, and have fun doing it.

"We need to relax and start having fun, like we were playing earlier this season," he said. "It seems like we have been putting too much pressure on ourselves lately, we need to adopt the underdog mentality and play like we have nothing to lose."