For Visitation softball, familiarity and contempt

It was a familiar finish, if not a slightly more agonizing one.

Looking for its first trip to the softball state tournament, Visitation lost in the Class 2A, Section 4 final for the second consecutive season in 2014, the team's third championship game loss in the past four years.

Just as it had in 2013, the final loss in 2014 came at the hands of Tri-Metro Conference rival St. Anthony. And just like in 2013, it came with Visitation one victory from advancing, only to have St. Anthony win back-to-back games in the final to win the double-elimination tournament.

The reason the Blazers' latest runner-up finish stings a bit more than the others: It came after a 2-1 loss in which the winning run was scored in the final inning.

One game. One inning. One run. One more year of waiting.

"It came right down to the end," Visitation coach Dan Jameson said. "It's tough to lose that way."

Things could be far different for Jameson's Blazers this year.

"It's tough," Anderson-Glass said of the near misses in reaching state for the first time. "We've learned from it, though. ... I think we're ready now."

Pitching is the foundation of a winning program, Jameson said. This season the Blazers will focus heavily on their battery.

"Pitching can take you a long way," the coach said. "You'll run into some very good-hitting teams in the playoffs, but to get there you have to be able to pitch. It gives you a chance to win every game."

Anderson-Glass, a senior, has been dominant on the mound the past two years, going 30-4 with more than 270 strikeouts. She had a 0.94 earned-run average as a junior. She and Otto, a fifth-year varsity player despite being just a junior, will get the ball the majority of games this spring.

"Well, Kierstin has a big bat for us, too," Jameson said. "She led us in home runs, extra-base hits, RBIs, slugging — almost everything — last year."

Anderson-Glass is already looking forward to playing St. Anthony this spring. The two teams are scheduled to meet in a Tri-Metro game on April 29.

"They're a very good team, so it kind of shows how all of our skills are working together, whether we're ready or not, and what we need to work on," she said.

But she doesn't want her team obsessing over beating one team. She said in last year's section final, she and her teammates got "too hyped up" in making it a payback game.

Anderson-Glass doesn't care who her team beats — or how. She just wants to finish her Visitation career with a much different ending, preferably in the state tournament.