SPARKS - You'll have to forgive the Douglas High Softball team if it looked as though it had fallen victim to some horribly cruel prank Saturday at the Shadow Mountain Sports Complex in Sparks.
Just one week removed from losing Brittany Puzey, one of their three lethal starting pitchers, to a broken thumb, the Tigers fell prey to another bad break.
Douglas held a 2-0 lead over Elko in the Reed Easter Tournament entering the third inning when Kayla Dunn, another of Douglas' heralded starting trio, slipped awkwardly while crossing home plate and hyper-extended her knee badly.
Douglas' Jessie Kizer slipped on the same plate Friday, but Dunn's fall was much more serious. After a 10-minute delay she was carried off the field and taken to the hospital. An MRI didn't reveal any tears and she is expected to be back in a week at the most. However, she was on crutches and in a thick brace when she returned to the field.
While Douglas picked up a 12-1 victory in the game against Elko, it wasn't done riding its string of remarkably bad luck just yet.
In the day's second game, Kellei Kizer - the third of Douglas' starting three - pulled a muscle in her upper leg while pitching against Reed in relief of Mitzi Olsen.
Kizer allowed just one run and struck out one in 1 and two-thirds innings of work, but was pulled by coach Jim Puzey after she suffered the pull. At the time, no one on the team was aware of Dunn's status.
"That (pulling Kizer) was more precautionary than anything," Puzey said. "She just tweaked her leg a little bit, but we didn't want to take any chances on it today, especially with the way things have been going.
"We're going to need her to throw a lot of valuable innings for us later on in the year. There was no sense trying to push it today in these games that don't mean anything in the long run."
Reed ended up topping Douglas 5-2, eliminating the Tigers from the tournament.
"It's just one of those things," Jim Puzey said. "You like to think you can make it through an entire season without anyone getting hurt, but it doesn't happen that way. As it turns out, with us, it just happened to be two of our top players.
"Bottom line is, Douglas High is a softball team, not a group of softball players. Sure this changes things - it always does when you lose two players that can single-handedly take over a game at any given point. But the cupboard certainly isn't bare.
"This is a very good team. We're better with Kayla and Brittany, but we are still a very good team.
"Kellei will be fine and when it comes down to it, people are still going to have to beat our ace twice at zone," Puzey said. "We still have the top pitcher in the north, and that would have been the case no matter which two we lost.
"I still believe we are the team to beat. Sure, this is some adversity, but things like this are opportunities for someone else to step up and make some big contributions for us.
"Kayla is going to work hard to get back with us, so will Brittany, but we want to make sure they are 100 percent healthy first before we throw them back in there," Puzey said. "You hope for a quick recovery, but it only hurts them more if they are out there playing before they should be."
Douglas had little trouble dispensing of Elko in the morning game, tallying 12 runs despite collecting only six hits.
Skyler Zulian, Tisha Luken and Felicia Imelli each drove in two runs for the Tigers and Dana Pardee went 2-for-2 at the plate with a triple to lead Douglas.
Olsen picked up the win for the Tigers, scattering four hits and allowing one run.
Against Reed, Valerie Smith went 3-for-3 for the Tigers and Jessie Kizer and Zulian each drove in a run.
Reed tallied three runs in the bottom of the third to chase Olsen from the game, but she re-entered in the fourth to relieve Kellei Kizer after the leg injury and allowed only two hits and a run from there on out.
Douglas (13-4) hosts Spanish Springs Thursday at 3:30 p.m. but otherwise gets the week off to regroup before launching into league play against Wooster on April 5.
