Holub's offense key to Monarchs' success
By CONOR NICHOLL
Alan Billinger understands how important junior Maddie Holub is for the Thomas More Prep-Marian softball team.
"We need Maddie Holub's bat," the Monarch coach said.
Holub, who produced terrific numbers as a sophomore, hasn't matched that offense this season.
She has also fallen into a recent funk and lost her usual spot as the Monarchs' cleanup hitter to freshman catcher MaKenzie Altman.
Holub's bat is crucial if the Monarchs are going to match last season's Class 4A state title, Billinger said. TMP-Marian is 18-1 and the No. 1 seed in the Larned regional. They start their playoff run at a second championship today.
"She has got to come around," Billinger said.
The Monarchs, who have a first-round bye, face the winner of the game between Hoisington and Holcomb, both 5-13, today at Larned. First pitch is scheduled for 4:45 p.m. (KAYS 1400 AM).
Last spring, Holub enjoyed the greatest season, statistically, in the seven-year Billinger era.
She batted 586/713/1012 (batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage) and is the only player in the Billinger era to bat over .500 for a single spring.
She also hit six homers, 13 doubles and drove in 44 runs. She paced the 24-2 Monarchs in nearly every offensive statistic.
A year later, Holub's numbers have fallen off. She is hitting 444/694/794 and doesn't lead the team in any of those three categories. She ranks third in slugging, fourth best in average and fifth in on-base percentage.
In the last three games against Goodland (twice) and Colby, Holub has gone 1-for-7 with a strikeout, one of only three strikeouts she has had all season. Against Colby in the regular season finale, Billinger moved Altman, the team's leading hitter, to No. 4 in the order and switched Holub to third.
Earlier this spring, Billinger thought Holub might have been putting too much pressure on herself to match last season's production. After the Colby game last Thursday, he noticed some mechanical changes.
"She is not hitting off the back foot, she is reaching for the pitch," Billinger said. "Her rhythm at batting just isn't there."
Sophomore Kaylee Hoffman, the team's leadoff batter and second-leading hitter behind Holub last spring, also has seen her average drop 29 points from last season. She is down to .450 entering the regional.
"If we are going to be successful we have got to get those two people going," Billinger said.
Holub on the mound
Holub, with Hoffman, is also one of the team's two ace pitchers. The right-hander, a first team all-state Class 4A pitcher in 2007, enters today with a 9-0 record and a 0.55 earned-run average, while Hoffman stands at 8-1, 0.61.
Earlier this spring, Holub pitched back-to-back no-hitters (one of them a perfect game). In her last outing against Colby, though, Holub wasn't sharp in a 2-1 win.
"She didn't have the speed there for sure," Billinger said. "The spin wasn't bad, but the speed, she just didn't throw hard. She had it once in awhile, but not consistently."
Billinger said Holub's curveball "wasn't working well" and her rise ball -- "her bread and butter," he said -- was a little inconsistent.
Post out
Junior Ryan Post, the Monarchs' leadoff hitter, might have torn his anterior cruciate ligament in his knee for the second time and will be out for the Monarch baseball team's regional game against Larned today. The Monarchs (6-10) are the No. 5 seed in the Holcomb regional and play at Garden City against No. 4 Larned (8-8) at 4:30 p.m.
Post, who first tore the ACL in football, came back at the beginning of the baseball season.
"That is something at this point, I don't know what I am going to do leadoff," head coach Brian Schumacher said.
Junior Ethan Schmidt started against Colby last Thursday and could see that role against Larned. Junior Carl Conway is also a possibility.
Monarch offense
TMP-Marian has struggled offensively throughout most of the season, but senior catcher Kelton Stecklein has hit the ball well, especially in the Monarchs' recent 4-4 stretch.
"He has done a nice job," Schumacher said. "He has gone out and worked hard. If he had a bad doubleheader or a game or two that he didn't do so well, he is down in the tunnel hitting. He is a good, hard working player. Whenever he had issues with whatever part of his game, he is out there working to get better."
Bunts
Monarch assistant baseball coach Dustin Schumacher got married on Saturday. ... The Monarch softball team has not dropped a regional game since it lost 1-0 in the regional final to Gypsum-Southeast of Saline on May 21, 2003.
Since then, the Monarchs have finished second, fourth, second and first at the state tournament.
