Terrace’s perfect pairing

Published 2:51 pm Monday, April 20, 2009

Kori Seidlitz and Kayla Watson are the Mountlake Terrace softball team’s perfect weapons.

Even though softball is a team sport, sub-groups exist on the field: infielders, outfielders — and perhaps most important of all — the pitcher and catcher.

Pitching and catching is what senior co-captains Seidlitz and Watson do for the Hawks. They’re so good at it, so good as a combination, that together they achieved the pitcher’s ultimate goal: the perfect game.

And they did it not once, but twice. In two days.

“Nope, never,” Terrace coach Kim Stewart said when asked if he’d ever seen back-to-back perfect games in his more than 20 years of coaching. “I’ve had a couple girls pitch perfect games before, and no-hitters, but I’ve never had a tandem like (Seidlitz and Watson).

“They’re the best pitcher and catcher that I’ve ever had.”

In a perfect game, not one member of the opposing team reaches base — no walks, no hits. Three up and three down in every inning. And while a perfect game is every pitcher’s ambition, the catcher plays a vital role, especially one like Watson who decides what pitches Seidlitz throws.

“Sometimes I get scared to wave her off,” Seidlitz said of the teammate she has known since they were 5 years old. “It seems like the pitch I wave her off on is the one they hit. I trust her and 99 percent of the time she’s right.”

Watson, who said she has been catching for the South Dakota State-bound Seidlitz on and off since the seventh grade, didn’t hesitate when asked what portion of the credit belonged to her as the catcher.

“Kori deserves the credit,” she said. “Yes, I’m calling the pitches, but she’s throwing them and she can’t throw a bad pitch.”

On April 7 — her 18th birthday — Seidlitz struck out nine en route to a 12-0 victory over Mariner that was shortened to five innings by the mercy rule. Fifteen Marauders up, 15 down.

Watson batted 3-for-4 with a home run in that game, something much more common for the Hawks than a perfect game.

“She’s been All-Wesco first team that past two years and batted over .500 every year,” Stewart said of the 17-year-old Watson. “I don’t think there are any other (Wesco) catchers that good.”

It wasn’t until after the game that the Hawks’ duo realized what they’d accomplished.

“I was just trying to keep her calm, get her ready for the next batter,” Watson said. “She strikes everyone out every game anyway, so it didn’t seem like a perfect game.”

It was Seidlitz’s first career perfect game, although the pitcher said she’s been “one batter away … always that one batter” several times in the past.

The day after the Mariner game was the 19th birthday of Seidlitz’s boyfriend of two years, former Terrace pitcher Jacob Theis. Theis is currently a member of the Kansas City Royals’ Arizona Rookie League team while he rehabs from Tommy John surgery, and since she had pitched a perfect game on her birthday, Seidlitz jokingly told him she would pitch another for his.

“We have competitions for everything,” Seidlitz said of Theis. “He’s really supportive and proud (of me).”

Seidlitz was in dominant form on April 8, striking out 17 batters in a 5-0 victory over Shorecrest that went the full seven innings. Twenty-one Shorecrest batters up, 21 down.

But the Scots didn’t make it easy on Seidlitz, with batters squaring up to bunt for an easy hit and the team yelling from the dugout anytime a batter made contact.

That’s when Watson — whom Seidlitz said is the “fun” co-captain of the Hawks while she is the serious one — stepped in.

“She got me focused,” Seidlitz said. “I get more into the game than her. She keeps me calmed down and in line.”

Seidlitz knows her perfect game against Shorecrest may be the last one she ever pitches — or the second of many.

“After the first one, for the second one (Kayla) and I talked about having the opportunity,” Seidlitz said. “It’s just whether or not you can stay focused, or the cards play right. A fly could go fair or foul, you just never know.”