Local players help lead Livonia Strom to red-hot start in Orlando

July 29, 2010, 9:30 a.m.

  The heat index has been over 100 this week in Orlando, Fla., the site of the USSSA 14U Fast-Pitch Softball World Series.

  But the blazing sun has been no match for the Livonia Storm, a team whose roster includes several local players.

  Heading into Thursday's games, the Storm had bolted to a 4-0 start and was just one of six or seven teams in the 45-team field to hold an unbeaten record.

  The Storm opened the double-elimination World Series Sunday with an exciting 6-4 victory over the Ohio Wave. The Storm trailed 4-0 early and 4-3 late when four consecutive batters - Shannon Watson, Kait McIntosh, Elaine Gerou and Celeste Fidge - reached based after facing two-strike counts. Fidge delivered the big blow - bases-loaded double - leading the Storm to a 6-4 win.

  Gerou, a sophomore-to-be at Plymouth High School, tossed two innings of no-hit relief to notch the win.

  On Tuesday, the Storm mercied the Texas-based Boombahs, 12-0, in the three innings to improve to 2-0. Gerou and Hannah Warren combined to throw a no-hitter while the team's hitters rapped out 13 hits.

  Later on Tuesday, the Storm upended the Illinois USSSA state champions Matoon Cobras, 7-4, as Jacquelyn Murphy and Gerou limited their foes to just four hits while the Storm battered the Cobras' pitchers with 14 safeties.

  On Wednesday, the Storm knocked off Sudden Impact, a team based in the Florida panhandle, 4-1. With the game knotted at 1-1 in the fifth inning, the Floridians loaded the bases with nobody out, but Gerou struck out the next three hitters. In the bottom of the frame, the Storm laced four consecutive one-out hits - a slap by McIntosh, a double by Gerou that scored McIntosh, and back-to-back smashes by Fidge and Murphy that provided a pair of insurance runs. The Storm outhit the Impact, 8-3.

  The Storm takes on an unbeaten team from Rhode Island in Thursday's first game.