By Bobby Allen

SDN Sports Editor

For Snyder seniors Kelsi Johnson and Missy Vasquez, Friday’s area playoff game between the Lady Tigers and the Perryton Rangerettes is more than a playoff game.

“We’re ready to play them again,” Vasquez said.

“It’s like revenge,” Johnson added.

Perryton (13-12) and the Lady Tigers (20-9, 11-1) will tangle for the second year in a row, giving the Snyder players who remember last year’s stunning loss a chance to take vengeance on the team that shattered a season of promise and heralded the end of an era.

After going 37-3-1 during the regular season, the Lady Tigers took Perryton lightly and were summarily eliminated. Head coach Shelley Hayes resigned shortly thereafter.

Johnson seems almost relieved to talk about what went wrong in last year’s 5-3 loss in which the Lady Tigers committed four errors in the eighth inning to hand the underdog Rangerettes a stunning upset.

“We didn’t even look at them last year,” Johnson said. “After that game, all our dreams and our goals went down the drain, and it was our fault.”

Johnson said this year, the squad did not set any definitive goals before the season started. The team lost all five infielders from the 2003 team, and Johnson said she felt the team would need a lot of work to repeat as district champions.

“We wanted to make the playoffs from the start,” she said. “Coach Pool has done a good job of bringing girls out for different positions, and we have progressively gotten better. We’re hitting our peak.”

Vasquez said the difference between this year’s attitude and last year’s version is a matter of degrees.

“We know what we did last year was a mistake -- we were cocky,” she said. “This year we are confident. We weren’t paying any attention to Perryton (last season). This year, it’s all Perryton.”

Johnson said first-year head coach Darren Pool has not allowed the team to look beyond its area round opponent.

“We’re taking it one game at a time, and doing things to prepare for them,” she said.

Snyder blasted through the District 3-3A schedule this year and have won 10 of their last 11 games, with the only slip coming against Merkel.

“We’re playing decent -- about as good as we have played,” Pool said.

The Lady Tigers will hand the ball to ace Ashley Martinez, and she will face a line-up that Pool said is athletic with “average” pitching and defense.

Martinez pitched the final four innings against Perryton in 2003, getting tagged with the loss after the defense collapsed in the eighth inning. She struck out nine, walked three and allowed two hits in that game.

Pool said the Lady Tigers have gotten solid work in while waiting on the area round. He said the team tried to experiment early, using the pre-district schedule to find the shape of the team.

“It wasn’t so much as a slow start as we were trying to different things,” he said. “We used the early season to find the mold of the team, and the girls have come together and played well. Hopefully we can extend the season.”

The teams will get underway at 7 p.m. Friday at Plainview High School.