LAKEWOOD — When you have achieved perfection, you’re afforded a bit of leeway to nitpick.
So when Wheat Ridge pitcher Stephanie Routzon indicated she was mostly — but not entirely — pleased with the Farmers’ 4-2 nonleague win at Lakewood on Tuesday, it made sense.
Routzon, after all, was 23-0 last season in helping Wheat Ridge to the Class 4A title. And you don’t reach perfection without meticulous attention to detail.
“We did pretty well, but we might need to pick it up a little bit,” the hard-throwing, 5-foot-10 senior said after striking out nine in a complete-game performance.
Pick up what, Stephanie?
“Smart baserunning and learning how to hit in the clutch when girls are on base,” she said
The Farmers (6-1-1) did produce a few clutch hits. Sophomore Elle Madsen clubbed an RBI double to break a scoreless tie in the third, and after two Lakewood errors in the sixth, Coley Thies blasted a two-run double and Kelsey Ankoviak followed with a run-scoring single.
Interestingly, Lakewood elected to play the power-hitting Madsen — she was an All-Colorado player as a freshman — straight up with Kayla Mathewson on second in the third. Despite making only fair contact, Madsen’s flyball went over the heads of the outfielders.
“I thought it was going to be an out, so I started jogging,” Madsen said. “Then I saw it drop and thought, ‘Oh, I better start running.’ “
The lone highlights for Lakewood (2-2) came in the sixth, when cannon-armed right fielder Jessica Wright caught a flyball, then gunned a runner trying to advance to third after tagging up. In the bottom of the inning, Tigers pitcher Kylie Pierce drilled a two-run homer off Routzon to cut the deficit to 4-2.
“They just hit the ball really well and we did our best to try to come back from it,” Wright said. “But Kylie’s homer was awesome. That was just a sick hit.”
Routzon, predictably, wasn’t pleased with the homer, saying: “It was a mistake. It was just kind of floating in there.”
Stated just like someone who isn’t accustomed to failure.
