By Mike Weaver

With the 1999 softball season past its halfway point, the Montezuma-Cortez High School team is searching for its identity. Last week’s doubleheaders against Southwestern League rivals at the Cortez Softball Complex were cases in point.

On Sept. 24, the Panthers lost a twin bill to Fruita-Monument 12-6 in nine innings, and then fell 11-2 in the second game. Montrose took a 5-1 win in the first game the following day at the City Softball Complex, but the Panthers roared back to win the second game 11-3.

The Panthers visit Grand Junction Central for a doubleheader today, Oct. 1. They return home for back-to-back twin bills Oct. 8-9 against Palisade and Rifle.

Just two bad innings in a total of 14 played were enough to derail the Panthers against Fruita.

"We outplayed Fruita for 12 innings," second-year Panther head coach Ted Williams said. "We just lost our composure.

"We weren’t beat by a superior team. Mentally, our kids just don’t know how good they are."

Hitting plus good defense put Cortez on top of the Wildcats early in the first game. A couple of fielding errors gave Fruita an unearned run in the top of the first inning. But the Panthers didn’t take much time replying. Twilley, batting in the second spot, smacked a triple to the left field fence to get things started. Jentri Giesler followed with a run batted in single, and another single by Kelley Unrien scored Giesler. The Panthers took a 2-1 lead.

Twilley, Giesler and Unrien were good for a run batted in each in the second inning, as Cortez still led 5-2. Fruita closed the gap a little in the third inning when on a single by leadoff hitter Bri Brown and an RBI single by Savannah Byers. Twilley hit a home run in the fourth inning to give the Panthers a 6-3 lead. That was the high water mark for the Panthers, whose bats seemed to go to sleep.

That was not the case for Fruita, though. Brown led off the top of the fifth inning with a homer to make it a 6-4 game, and in the seventh, Brit Byers picked up an RBI and Kayla Nelson scored a run on a passed ball to tie the game.

It was a stalemate through the eighth inning, and then in the top of the ninth, the Wildcats batted around their order on the way to a six point inning. Cortez went out on a pop fly and two runners thrown out at first base.

The winning pitcher was Emily Neal while, the Panthers’ Stacey Pottorff took the loss.

Cortez again took the lead and held the Wildcats to just one run through most of the second game and led 3-1 after four innings. But disaster struck in the fifth inning as the Wildcats scored 10 runs, most of them unearned.

Panther lead-off batter Linda Smart and Twilley scored in the bottom of the first inning and the Panthers took a 2-0 lead. A sacrifice single got a Wildcat runner home in the second. Smart scored another run on a Fruita error at home plate in the third inning and good defense held the Wildcats scoreless through the fourth.

Then disaster visited the Panthers when the bottom fell out of their pitching and their fielding followed suit. Starting at the top of its batting order, the Wildcats drew two bases on balls. For Cortez, the game was out of reach after five more base hits and two more walks.

Potorff pitched four complete innings to take the Cortez loss. The winning pitcher for Fruita was Neal.

Saturday’s double header against Montrose offered big contrasts in the Panther’s batting.

Unrien went two for three at the plate and team mate Ashley Wilson three for four including two doubles in the first game. The Panthers out batted Montrose 11-5, but could not string their hits together. A host of hitters found themselves stranded.

But it all came together for Cortez in game two as it roughed up two Indian pitchers on the way to a 11-3 mismatch.

In game one, Montrose scored an earned and unearned run in the first inning. Both teams executed defensive shutouts for the next four innings. Montrose scored twice in the sixth and once more in the seventh, while the Panthers got just one run in the final inning.

Stacy Parker claimed the win for Montrose, and Pottorff the Panther loss.

Leading 5-2 going into the third inning, the Panthers broke the second game wide open in the third.

"We started stroking the ball," Williams said. "It probably was the third best inning we’ve had this year. As a coach, you couldn’t ask for much more from a team."

Cortez batted around its batting order and took a 11-3 lead. It was all the Panthers needed as the pitching of Giesler, the winning pitcher, held the Indians in check at the plate.