Friday May 27th South O’Brien and MMCRU had a great back and forth War Eagle Conference softball game at Cleghorn. The Royals got on the board first with a run in the bottom of the first inning and took the early 1-0 lead. Neither team scored in the second inning. In the top of the third with one out Karlee Warnke reached base on a single and stole second. Later with two outs Grace Fuhrman hit an RBI single to score Warnke and got to second when the ball was thrown home to try to get Warnke. On the next play Abby Schreck hit a hard grounder that the MMCRU shortstop mishandled, allowing Fuhrman’s courtesy runner, Marissa Ebel, to score and go up 2-1.
The Royals came right back in the bottom of the third with a run to tie it up 2-2. The fourth inning was scoreless. In the top of the fifth South O’Brien recorded two runs to go up 4-2. In that fifth frame with one out, Warnke drew a walk and stole second. With two outs Fuhrman hit an RBI single once again to score Warnke. Ebel came in to run. Schreck ripped a double to the fence to score Ebel. The Royals once again responded by scoring two runs of their own in the fifth and tying it up again 4-4. The Wolverines did not score in the sixth inning, but the Royals got one run to go up 5-4.
In the top of the seventh South O’Brien needed a run to at least stay alive. Our first two batters grounded out and struck out. Things were looking pretty grim. Warnke then got a base hit and Kenna Bauer doubled to score Warnke and tie it up at five all. In the bottom of the seventh MMCRU got a single, a walk and another single to load the bases. The winning run came across the plate on a wild pitch.
It’s never fun to lose, but a lot of good things happened tonight. The biggest highlight was that we only committed one error as a team! This was a huge improvement over the first two games. As for the offensive production, we totaled seven hits. Warnke led all batters with a pair of singles and three runs. Fuhrman had two singles, two RBI’s and two runs scored by her courtesy, Ebel. Bauer and Schreck both had an RBI double and Annika Jenness hit a base hit. Fuhrman had a decent night on the mound, giving up nine hits, six runs (five earned), striking out two and walking four. Overall it was a very entertaining game to watch as both teams each only committed one error. A very clean game for this early in the year.
S. O’Brien
0 0 2 0 2 0 1 – 5
MMCRU
1 0 1 0 2 1 1 – 6