Central erupts after early softball struggle
Central College
PELLA — It was another step back and step forward for the Central College softball team Saturday.
After a sluggish start, the No. 19 Dutch (17-6) showed some seventh-inning spark, only to have the potential tying run thrown out at the plate in a 2-1 setback against St. Benedict (Minn.), but then overwhelmed St. Norbert (Wis.) 10-1 in five innings.
Coming on the heels of a significant doubleheader sweep of Gustavus Adolphus (Minn.) Friday, coach George Wares was hoping for better. The Dutch yielded a first-inning run in both games Saturday and have done so in all four of their games of the weekend Central-Simpson Invitational.
“We can’t get out of the top of the first,” Wares said. “It’s disappointing.”
Pitcher Mallory Schulenberg (senior, Kansas City, Mo., St. Pius X HS) surrendered a pair of runs on six hits with no walks and five strikeouts on 101 pitches in seven innings after throwing 150 pitches in the doubleheader Friday. She slipped to 6-4.
“To the credit of Mallory and to our defense after (the first inning), we got ourselves out of a lot of jams and gave ourselves chances to win, but then we didn’t do what we needed to do offensively,” Wares said. We didn’t get bunts down, we hesitated on the bases—there are just a lot of little things that we aren’t doing and when you play a good St. Ben’s team, you get beat.”
Some more defensive misadventures hurt the Dutch early.
“St. Ben’s is a pretty good team and we only scored one run, so give their pitcher credit, but it’s more about how the whole game went,” Wares said. “We just broke down defensively, which is so uncharacteristic of what we’ve been. If that doesn’t get better, we’re going to have a lot of bumps in the road along the way.”
Central outhit St. Benedict 8-6 but was scoreless until the seventh, when catcher Katie Canney (senior, Adel, ADM HS) reached on an error. Right fielder Sarah Bowen (sophomore, New Sharon, North Mahaska HS) delivered a two-out RBI single to keep the Dutch alive, then stole second. Second baseman Abbey Strajack (senior, Davenport, Assumption HS) beat out a bunt single, but Wares sent Bowen streaking past third and she was tagged out at the plate.
St. Norbert (4-8) held a 1-0 lead heading into the third, but the Dutch erupted with back-to-back five-run innings and closed out the game in five frames. Whitney Sowers (senior, Marshalltown), Paige Schreiner (junior, Ottumwa) and Kaitlyn Matzen (senior, Manly, Central Springs HS) hit their fourth, third and third homers of the season, respectively. Sowers had two hits and four RBIs.
Trisha Smith (junior, New Hampton) gave up the first-inning run while yielding four hits with three walks and striking out two over four innings, upping her record to 9-1. Annie DeVries (freshman, Eldridge, North Scott HS) walked a batter in throwing a scoreless fifth inning.
Central closes out the weekend Sunday, meeting St. Norbert again at 2 p.m. and St. Scholastica (Minn.) at 4 p.m. Those two schools square off at noon. St. Scholastica split a doubleheader with Dubuque at Oskaloosa Saturday while Friday’s foe, Gustavus Adolphus, split a pair at No. 10 Simpson.
“Hopefully we can come back and get two tomorrow, but it’s a tough little tournament,” Wares said.
A video webcast and live stats will be provided for both Central games at www.central.edu/athletics or directly at http://portal.stretchinternet.com/central/. KRLS radio sportscaster Trevor Castle will handle the play-by-play for Central’s second game
