The kind of quote Rex Foster might give.

“We need more umpires!”

That is definitely true, but I have been thinking about the difficulty of being an umpire in this day and age.

I’m not too old yet to forget about my father calling me out in youth league on strikes. Obviously, he was blind and the pitch was off the black.

Point being, everyone misses things. Even the best umpires.

I had a great Saturday afternoon watching John Carroll and Marietta College’s softball teams go toe-to-toe.

Somehow I failed to mention two of the best defensive plays I’ve seen this year.

Pioneer right fielder Maddy Jones had a pair of assists in game two of the twinbill split. She threw a runner out at home and also came up firing for a nifty 9-3 assist.

On Sunday, Marietta College swept Penn State Behrend and will have senior day starting at 1 p.m. Saturday when Baldwin Wallace invades.

Ashton Helmke won her first game after throwing a two-hit shutout in an 8-0 triumph. Jess Brown carried the big stick in the opener with two bombs and six runs-batted-in.

A 12-10 slugfest win in game two was delivered by ex-Frontier Cougar standout Kylie Daugherty’s two-run walk-off round-tripper.

Right across the Ohio River the Williamstown girls of head coach Zach Hall appear more than ready for next week’s Little Kanawha Conference track meet in West Union.

The Yellowjackets just put on a show at the Cline Stansberry Invitational. Working around prom, WHS is trying to keep everything in focus heading toward the stretch run.

“It’s one of those things, don’t do anything dumb and stay healthy and keep going,” said the coach.

Records were meant to be broken and WHS did plenty of that.

For starters, Alyssa Sauro’s first 3200 run at the CSI resulted in a 10:33.72 meet record that shattered Maggie Drazba’s mark of 11:15.45 for St. Marys in 2013.

Sauro’s freshman teammate Shelby Smith went 56.98 in the 400 to erase Williamstown’s Lilly McMullen and her 2019 effort of 58.21 from the record books. St. Marys’ Erica Davis, who went 26.02 in the 200 to just miss ex-Bulldog Jonna Ferrell’s clocking of 26.01 in 2018, ran a 57.48 in the 400.

“We were on our game last weekend,” added Hall. “Alyssa Sauro is really, really good at what she does and so is Shelby Smith.

“I think we broke four meet records and (Ritchie County’s) Olivia Cress broke one. This is kind of like a get healthy week, get back at it and get ready for it and keep it going type deal.”

Morgantown’s 10:07.26 stood the test of time in the 4×8 for more than a decade (2011) until Sauro was joined by Ava Lightfritz, Brianna Winsett and Reagan Ortiz for a record breaking 9:44.14.

Ella McMullen, Emma Berman, Jalie Henthorne and Brookelyn Reynolds crossed in 1:47.77 to set a new mark in the 4×2.

Cress’ record came when she went 16 feet, 7.5 inches to eclipse Magnolia’s Jaci Rohde’s 16-5.5 effort set last spring in the long jump.

Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com