With Shaw, Colfax able to play its ace again

With three teams tied atop the Northeast A softball standings, the re-emergence of Colfax ace Kylie Shaw could turn the tide in the Bulldogs’ favor.

Shaw, a junior who is regaining her form after sitting out the 2005 season, is 5-1 and led Colfax (8-5, 4-2) to a key doubleheader sweep over rival Kettle Falls Sunday.

While her numbers may say she has returned to full form – in 42 1/3 innings she has allowed just five earned runs, an ERA of 0.85 – Shaw’s coach Keith Becker thinks she may still be improving.

“She is the ace,” Becker said. “She’s doing a great job, just getting better all the time for us. She’s just getting back in the groove. … We knew it would be midseason before we could get her back to where she was, where she needed to be.”

Shaw took off her sophomore year, and the summer following, to focus on swimming before realizing how much she missed softball. It’s taken a while to recover from that layoff, and Shaw said she is just now rounding into shape.

“I was very rusty,” said Shaw, who was named to the 2005-06 second-team All-NEA for basketball, in which Colfax won its third straight state title. “It took me a while to get back into my pitching mode. When I did, I felt like I had to go through the motions for a while, then really pick it up. At first I didn’t know if I was going to be able to do it again like my freshman year. Now I’m picking up my arm speed a lot, getting back into the groove of it.”

Not everything is coming back at the same speed, though. While she has had success on the mound, at the plate she has had a tough time.

“The biggest thing being out is the offensive side,” Becker said. “The hardest thing is getting back and hitting the ball, and she’s struggled a little there. She’s not striking out, but she’s not hitting the ball as hard as she wants yet. She’s still getting better there.”

Shaw isn’t overpowering – she only has 23 strikeouts – but the Bulldogs have a strong defense, which gives Shaw the confidence to trust her stuff and throw strikes.

“I like pitching it down the middle, having the defense work with me not me doing much,” Shaw said. “(I like) letting them do it all.

“(They) give me a lot of confidence when I walk people or get the bases loaded … it helps me a ton with them behind me.”