Grace Fuhrman Fanned Six Trinity Christian Batters One Game After Setting A School Record With 17 Strikeouts Against Harris Lake Park.

Maddie Johnson Was Locked On To Trinity Christian Pitching, Going 5 For 5 In A 16 6 Wolverine Win.

On May 23rd the South O’Brien Wolverines traveled to Lake Park for their first softball game of 2022. The first two innings were quiet with neither team scoring a run. In the top of the third, with two outs, Kenna Bauer hit a single. The Harris-Lake Park pitcher then lost a little control and walked the next three batters to score Bauer to make the score 1-0. In the top of the fifth Bauer and Grace Fuhrman both reached on errors. Karlee Warnke came in to courtesy run for Fuhrman. With runners on second and third Abby Schreck hit a sacrifice fly to left field to score Bauer. Annika Jenness was up next and reached on an error, which scored Warnke. Later in the inning Maddie Johnson ripped a double to right field and scored on a single from Jinger Nieuwenhuis to go up 4-0.
It looked as if South O’Brien was in full command of the game through 4 ½ innings of play, but HLP had different ideas. The Wolves scored a run in the fifth and another in the sixth to cut the lead to 4-2. In the bottom of the seventh HLP got a leadoff walk and then a couple of singles in a row, which scored a run. The score was now 4-3 in favor of the Wolverines, but HLP had no outs and runners on second and third. Things were not looking good. Fuhrman proceeded to strike out the next two batters and then got the final batter to pop out in foul territory to Nieuwenhuis at third and got the 4-3 victory.
The Wolverines did not have to play much defense due to the fact that Grace Fuhrman was having a stellar night on the mound, fanning 17 batters, which was good for a school record in a single game! The previous record was held by Afton Roberts with 14 strikeouts. South O’Brien did not give her much help on defense though, committing four errors. Our offense wasn’t a whole lot better than our defense. We only mustered four hits in the contest. We probably had a bit of the first game jitters. We look to improve both our defense and offense in the games to come. Collecting hits were Fuhrman and Johnson with a double each and Bauer and Nieuwenhuis with a base hit apiece.
S. O’Brien
0 0 1 0 3 0 0 – 4
HLP
0 0 0 0 1 1 1 – 3