Texas Aces High School Highlights

April 29, 2007
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Rhiannon Kliesing
Special to StudentSportsSoftball.com

Editor's note: Rhiannon Kliesing, who pitches for the Texas Aces club team, led Pearland (Texas) High to the state playoffs in 2006 as she hurled 13 shutouts, two no-hitters, struck out 285 batters and had a 0.34 earned run average. At the plate, she hit .343 average to earn EA SPORTS All-American honors….



Rhi and Pearland have overcome the loss to take the No. 1 seeding and the first game of the playoffs.

Hello again! It's Rhi!

Let's see, the last time I wrote, we had to beat Alvin to win the district championship out right. Well, we lost.

We had a 1-0 lead going into the 6th inning, and all of a sudden the umpire wouldn't call a strike. I walked three batters in one inning, something I've never done in my entire high school career. It seemed like no matter where I pitched the ball, even if it was where the umpire had previously called it a strike, he now called it a ball.

Although I knew better, I let my emotions get the best of me. I became frustrated and angry, and it affected my pitching that inning. They got a couple hits thrown in with the three walks and ended up scoring two runs to win the game. That loss really showed me how important it is to control my emotions in pressure situations.

We won our last two district games after that. With our loss to Alvin, there was a three-way tie for 1st place. Pearland, Brazoswood, and Alvin had all split games with each other. In order to determine the seeding for playoffs, the coaches of the three teams had a meeting and decided to play the next day (last Saturday) at Cleer Creek's field.

They flipped a coin first to decide who got the bye, and it was Brazoswood, so that meant we had to play Alvin first. We ended up playing a great game against Alvin and beat them 3-2.

That meant we had to play Brazoswood next. I guess we were already pumped up from winning the first game because we came out swinging in the next game, and we beat Brazoswood 7-1. I didn't pitch that game. We started our junior pitcher, Shelby Cockrell, and she did a great job. They only scored one run off of her in four innings. After that, we put in our freshman pitcher, Megan Marcet. She shut them down the rest of the game. It was an awesome win.

With the wins over Alvin and Brazoswood, we claimed the 1st place seeding for the playoffs. Alvin and Brazoswood played each other that same day to determine 2nd and 3rd place. Alvin lost to Brazoswood, so Brazoswood got the 2nd place seeding, and Alvin the 3rd.

We played our first playoff game against Fort Bend Austin at Elkins High School on Thursday, and we won 7-0. From the moment we stepped on the field until we arrived back home, we were more enthusiastic than I've ever seen us.

I think that really helped us with the win. We were having fun, and everyone had confidence at the plate. Our fans were loud, and that pumped us up, too. In the past, we have struggled with the first playoff game. Until last year, we never made it past the first round, and last year we went to 16 innings with Dobie and managed to pull out a win.

This year, however, was completely different. We dominated in our first game. We went out there knowing we were the better team, and we showed it. With the first game out of our way, we will only improve from here, and I'm excited to see how far we'll go.

I'll keep you updated on our progress throughout the playoffs. Good luck to all the other teams out there!

Go Oilers!!!

-Rhiannon