Central softball team misfires after strong start

Central College

TUCSON, ARIZ.—The typical early-season miscues that the Central College softball team managed to avoid through its first eight games all seemed to surface Wednesday as the Dutch escaped Sul Ross State (Texas) 5-3 then surrendered a seventh-inning lead in stumbling to a 10-5 loss to Wis.-La Crosse.

The ninth-ranked Dutch (8-2) yielded 12 unearned runs and committed eight errors on the day. Central had made just four errors in the first eight games while never giving up more than four runs in a contest.

Against Sul Ross State (2-11), Central had eight hits, but failed to score an earned run. The Dutch allowed two seventh-inning runs as the Lobos brought the tying run to the plate before Mallory Schulenberg (freshman, Kansas City, Mo., St. Pius X HS) closed the door. Schulenberg (2-0) allowed just one earned run on five hits with one walk and five strikeouts.

First baseman Abby Strajack (freshman, Davenport, Assumption HS) had two hits, scored two runs and was on base three times.

Strajack singled and scored in the first inning against Wis.-La Crosse and shortstop Annie Sarcone (sophomore, Des Moines, Dowling Catholic HS) drilled her third home run of the season over the left-field fence in the second inning as Central jumped to a 2-0 lead.

But Central yielded four runs in the fourth, including a two-error play that resulted in three unearned runs with two outs.

The Dutch struck back with an RBI hit by first baseman Kyrie Hale (senior, Lee’s Summit, Mo., West HS) in the fourth, then took the lead with two runs in the fifth. Catcher Caitlyn Meyer (junior, Newton) and Sarcone each had RBI hits.

Clinging to a 5-4 lead with one out in the seventh, an error on a tough-hop ground ball followed by a pair of singles let Wis.-La Crosse tie it at 5-5. The Eagles then erupted for five more runs after another error, a hit batter and two more hits.

“It’s hard to explain,” coach George Wares said. “Even though we won the first game, for whatever reason, we just weren’t all there. I felt pretty good in the second game when we recovered from that disastrous fourth inning. But you could still sense we weren’t sharp. Give La Crosse credit, but a lot of it was our own doing.”

Brie Haycraft (sophomore, Eldridge, North Scott HS) suffered her first loss of the season, dropping to 3-1 after pitching in relief of Rhianna Fleetwood (junior, Sycamore, Ill.). Fleetwood gave up four runs, including one earned run, on six hits with four walks and three strikeouts in 4.2 innings. Haycraft was tagged for six runs on five hits in 2.1 innings, but no earned runs. She walked one and fanned one.

“Our pitchers all struggled a little bit,” Wares ssaid. “That, combined with some uncharacteristic errors really hurt us. We had too many four, five and six-out innings. It’s hard to do that against a good team. And when the pitches missed, La Crosse capitalized on it.”

Central tries for a quick rebound Friday, meeting Denison University (Ohio) at 2 p.m. (Pacific Time) and Lakeland College (Wis.) at 6 p.m.

“We’ll try to get the players to realize that in 10 games so far, there’s been a lot more good than bad,” Wares said. “The tough part is we don’t have time to practice the things that we didn’t do well, but the nice thing is we don’t have to sit and wait long before we get another chance to play.”