Woodinville Softball All-Stars Eyeing State Title

Little League all-star teams kicked off competition last week and one group of Woodinville softball players has already found some early success.

The 12-and-under Woodinville softball all-stars won the District 8 tournament last week and will begin competition in the state tournament this weekend.

The team got off to a rough start in the district tournament, losing its first game, before pulling out back-to-back walk-off wins in the losers bracket. Woodinville then beat winners bracket winner North Central Little League twice in the championship round to take the district title.

“They put a couple of gray hairs on both the coaches," Woodinville coach Rich Janshen said of the team's dramatic road to the title.

The team is now off to the state tournament, which starts this weekend at the Northshore Athletic Fields in Bothell (the state champion will advance to regionals in San Bernardino, CA). Woodinville lost in the championship game in 2010 to Kirkland, and Janshen expects the finals in 2011 to be more of the same.

“Kirkland ended up beating us last year to win the state title," Janshen said. "I don’t think that path’s going to be any different this year in terms of who goes head-to-head when it comes down to it. We’ve got a good group of girls, the team as a whole, top-to-bottom, there’s a lot of talent there. We might just come out and surprise Kirkland.”

The all-star group (Katie Sue Eichner, Natasha Fingar, Jordyn Janshen, Georgia Knoles, Lily Logan, Laura Loyet, Erin McGrath, Lauryn Rhinehart, Taylor Rhinehart, Abby Woldman, Gina Wyner) is made up of players from the Woodinville and Woodinville West Little Leagues and is managed by Clint Rhinehart. Unlike most baseball little leagues, which often have all-star squads made up of players from several different teams, the group is pooled from just two teams.

“There was only two majors teams combined between the two leagues," Janshen said. "We don’t have the luxury of the boys where there’s four to six teams in a league to pool athletes from.”

Janshen, who has coached many of the team's members since tee-ball, said the team's success thus far has stemmed from an impressive pitching rotation that features three top-end starters and five pitchers overall.

“We’ve done a great job to really develop pitching," Janshen said. "We’ve got five girls that pitch on the team, we’ve got three that have the talent to pitch in the tournament. You’ll see a lot of other leagues that have one pitcher, maybe two. We’ve done a good job developing pitching and that’s huge for us.”

Also contributing to the team's success has been a familiarity factor. Seven of the team's 11 members play on the same team during the regular season, making the quick turnaround from league play to all-stars an easier transition.

“We didn’t have a lot of preparation with this team before we started playing in the tournament … so having seven girls coming from the regular season team was really helpful because the structure was already in place, the expectations were already laid down,” Janshen said.

Woodinville starts its run to the state title at 3:30 p.m. Saturday against West Plains of Spokane at the Northshore Athletic Fields in Bothell.