BRIDESMAIDS NO MORE!OAKVILLE WINS CLASS 4 SOFTBALL STATE CHAMPIONSHIP

Volume 2 • Issue 3 • November 2010

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4 STRENGTHENING THE CORENationally ranked triathlete Ryan Madam-ba gives advice on how to strengthen your core muscles.

6 BRIDESMAIDS NO MORE!After reaching the Final Four six times in the past 10 years, the Oakville Senior High softball finally wins a state championship!

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Do you want to maximize your speed and power? Build-ing your core muscles will gen-erate an improvement in your speed, power, and balance. The stronger your core the more power you can generate and the more control you will have over movements of the body like stopping, starting, and changing direction.

As you train and develop your arms and legs, it is also important to spend time on the core stabilizing muscles in the body such as your abdominal muscles. This can be accom-plished by focusing on proper form and doing isometric ex-ercises (ones using minimal or no movement such as long held yoga poses).

To maximize gains in the gym and prevent injury your body has to be balanced and aligned properly. Make sure you are taking time in your training to emphasize core stabilization and endurance of the core. To do this prop-erly form is essential during all exercises keeping the ears, shoulders, and hips in line, as well as, the knees and ankles in alignment. When squatting this should form two parallel lines from a side view with a neutral pelvis, and a straight line through the torso, and another line from the ankles through the knees.

When training over a long period of time you should have a plan in place that addresses a progression of core stabi-lization, balance, and power based exercises. Starting with a good foundation of core work will help insure proper align-ment and keep you injury free.

The first step to stabilizing your core is to focus on align-

ment. Sometimes you will have to work to bring yourself into alignment. Stimulate or en-ergize the muscles of the low back, abdomen, and hips “The Core”. These are the muscles supporting the thoracic spine and pelvis. This can be done initially with static or isometric holds but can also be a fo-cused while standing still.

The following are check points for proper alignment when standing:• Ears, shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles are in one line from the front and side view.• Neutral Pelvis- there is no forward tilt; if you were wear-ing a belt it would be level or parallel to the ground from a side view• Chin tucked, eyes forward• Shoulders back, shoulder blades lying flat on back

The next step to stabilizing your core is to perform exer-cises to help correct any im-balances that you may have. This is focused on performing static or isometric exercises holding your core motionless with proper alignment specifi-cally from the shoulders to ei-ther the knees or feet depend-ing on the level of difficulty.

When performing these exercises you will hold the pose for at least 15 seconds. Maintain a straight line from the knees or feet, through the hips, continuing through the shoulders and ears.

Remember to make core training a focus on a regular basis. You can even integrate it into a warm up or cool down that is part of your normal rou-tine.

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GETTING FITwith Ryan Madamba

Standing and squatting alignment OH squat

Plank

Bridge Pose

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The bond between a father and his daughter is always a strong connection from the moment that he holds her in his arms.

For Oakville Senior High’s Chloe Wolf, that special bond between her and her father Brian became even stron-ger this past season. On May 22nd, Chloe had to say good-bye to her dad when he lost his battle against an infection that started in his leg earlier in the year. That bond between father and daughter grew even stronger as Chloe entered her senior season at first base on the Tiger softball team.

“Softball was our bonding,” Wolf said. “It was the only time that we really spent some time together and was one of the main things that we always talked about. We would then start talking about other things, but it was my dad who was al-ways there cheering me on and making me laugh.”

Despite the adversity that Wolf had faced just months be-

fore the 2010 season started, it didn’t stop her from becom-ing one of the top hitters in the state. In fact, her 11 home runs this season led the St. Louis metropolitan area. Wolf also racked up a .450 batting aver-age with a team leading two triples and 36 runs batted in.

“Chloe really persevered through some tough personal circumstances,” Oakville head coach Rich Sturm said. “She came up to the plate this sea-son and really just hit some bombs for us. She had a shot against Parkway South in the playoffs that was just unreal.”

This was a significant im-provement since her junior season at Oakville where Wolf batted .347 with two home runs and 27 RBI’s. To top it off, Wolf saw little time this past summer playing for the Southern Force softball team, which is where most players get enough playing time to im-prove for the upcoming high school season.

So how in the world did she

improve so much since last year? Wolf had a simple, two-word answer that could only make sense. Her father.

“When my dad died, I want-ed him to help me hit a home run every time I was at bat,” Wolf said. “Whatever I did this season, I did with the help of my dad; my guardian angel.”

Wolf and the Tigers powered their way to a record of 26-1 and their sixth appearance in the Missouri State High School Activities Association’s softball Final Four in the past 10 years. There was a sense of purpose up and down the Oakville ros-ter when they found out the date of the state champion-ship game, October 23rd. That day just happened to be Brian Wolf’s birthday.

“When I found out the date of the championship game, I knew we were going to do it this year,” Wolf said. “My dad was so proud of me playing at Oakville and was our team’s biggest fan. I just knew that we were going to win.”

In the Missouri Class 4 state championship game against Truman, the Tigers walked away with a 1-0 win on a no-hit performance by starting pitcher Remy Edwards. Wolf popped up and was walked in the title game against Tru-man, which was nothing less than frustrating, as she wanted that one clean swing that her dad could help guide over the fence in the outfield.

“When they intentionally walked me, I was so mad,” Wolf said. “I was literally about ready to swing at a ball.”

Wolf is now playing basket-ball at Oakville and plans on attending Jefferson College next fall where she plans on majoring in marketing and ad-vertising and playing softball. It’s also safe to say that she’ll be asking her dad to watch over her as she steps up to the plate for the Vikings. Her dad probably won’t mind pushing a ball or two over that outfield fence when his favorite player is at the plate.

A Bond Like No OtherOAKVILLE SENIOR DEDICATES SEASON TO HER FATHER

BRIDESMAIDS NO MORE!OAKVILLE WINS CLASS 4 SOFTBALL STATE CHAMPIONSHIPOver the course of the past

10 years, the Oakville Senior High softball team has been one of the most dominant pro-grams in the state of Missouri.

During those 10 years, the Tigers have won nine dis-

trict championships and have made it to the Missouri State High School Activities Asso-ciation’s softball Final Four six times. In fact, Oakville made it to the state championship game in four of those years but

the Tigers always found them-selves as the runner-up rather than being the newly crowned state champion.

And so the Tigers lived with the label of, “the team that couldn’t win the big game.”

That was until October 23rd, when Oakville finally broke through the barrier which had teased them for so many years, with an impressive 1-0 win over Truman on a no-hitter by starting pitcher Remy Ed-

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wards.So just what was the dif-

ference between this year’s squad and teams of the past?

“Every team that I’ve coached has had some great players,” Oakville head coach Rich Sturm said. “In this situ-ation, we had two seniors in (Remy) Edwards and Julie Kernen who had been to the state championship two times before and just had the drive, the will and the determination to get the job done.”

Edwards put on one of the best performances in state championship history as she threw a no-hitter over seven in-nings pitched against Truman. The senior starting pitcher walked just three batters and retired 12 via strikeout for her 22nd win of the 2010 season. She finished the year with a re-cord of 22-1 and an earned run average of 0.66.

“Remy is a player that wants the ball and wants to perform well in those big games,” Sturm said. “She has all of the intangibles that you just can’t teach. In fact, when you com-bine the heart and spirit along with her talent, you have one heck of a player.”

Kernen proved to be Oakville’s biggest threat at the plate this season as she batted .536 with six home runs and 35 runs batted in. As a freshman, she played in right field and took all-state honors. Sturm then moved her over to third base for her sophomore and junior years, where she also took all-state honors. Kern-en then started 25 games at shortstop before being moved back over to third base for the Missouri Class 4 state semifi-nal game as well as the state championship game.

“I look back at Julie’s career at Oakville and I realized that she never batted below .400,” Sturm said. “She was all-state as a freshman as well as a sophomore and a junior. She could play all seven other po-sitions as an all-state player

and to top it off, she’s another kid that has the drive and heart that you just can’t teach play-ers.”

Senior first baseman Chloe Wolf proved to be one of the best power hitters in the state after leading the St. Louis met-ropolitan area with 11 home runs. Wolf also hit for average as she batted .450 with a team leading 36 runs batted in.

“Chloe is a kid that has per-severed through some tough personal circumstances,” Sturm said. “But she was always coming into each practice wanting those extra swings at batting practice and the younger players on the team learn from players like her what it takes to win a state championship.”

Senior Danie Farnam was a three-year starter in left field for the Tigers and has made considerable strides over the course of the 2010 season. This year Farnam batted .262 with six runs batted in and two doubles.

“Danie was a three year starter for us in left field that had those kinds of leadership skills where she really tried to inspire her teammates,” Sturm said. “Everything that she said or did both on and off the field, helped make our team a win-ner this year.”

Right fielder Emily Lansford spent all of her junior season as a role player for the Tigers, but that didn’t keep her from having a breakout senior sea-son for Oakville with a .351 batting average that also in-cluded 18 runs batted in.

“Emily was a role player for us as a junior and all of sudden she get the opportunity to start in right field and really comes through for us,” Sturm said. “She’s a quiet kid that works hard and really does all the right things for us.”

While Oakville is set to graduate five players from this year’s roster, the Tigers plan on returning up to 10 players for next year’s squad.

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