SOFTBALL

With league play just around the corner, the HU softball team picked up a pair of non-conference wins, 5-1, 11-3, against Manchester University Monday afternoon to move to 5-4 on the season.

Meghan Fretz stole the show in game one by surrendering just two hits, a run and walk while striking out eight for the complete-game win. She needed just 82 pitches on her way to the W.

Offensively, Jenessa Hasty took matters into her own hands by going a perfect 3-for-3 at the plate with two of her base knocks driving in three of Huntington’s runs. Her first RBI-hit was a shot up middle in the fourth while her final base poke of the day pushed two insurance runs across the plate in the top of the sixth.

Leading up to Hasty’s heroics, HU collected runs in back-to-back innings. Joelle Beals posted an RBI-fielder’s choice in the second for a 1-0 HU lead and then Jada Crofoot continued her tear at the plate by ripping a double in the third to score Hannah Shoupe who had just logged her own two-bagger.

Karley Blankenship finished with two hits. As a team, Gower’s crew finished with 11.

The Spartans’ lone run came in the bottom of the fourth.

After cruising to the win in the opener, the Foresters had their hands full in the nightcap until their last at bat when they erupted for seven runs to turn a one-run contest into a blowout.

Eleven Foresters stepped up to the plate in the seventh with the first two drawing walks after which HU pounded out six hits. Blankenship and Sophia Beachy highlighted the monster inning driving in two runs each on a bunt and double respectively. Other Foresters to pick up an RBI in the frame included Bailey Strickler, Kennedy Krull and Madison Tincher.

Prior to the seventh, the lead toggled back and four times with a deadlock along the way. The four Huntington runs during the see saw affair came by way of RBI-base hits by Blankenship, Hasty, Kiera Stacy and Beachy with Beachy’s single up the middle in the sixth giving her team a 4-3 lead.

Blankenship finished with a team-leading three hits. As a team, Huntington tallied 15 base pokes with five other members of Gower’s crew registering two hits apiece.

MacKyndsea Burke spent 6.1 innings in the circle to pick up the win. She scattered six hits, three runs and three walks while striking out two.

Huntington heads into league play on Friday with a road trip to Spring Arbor.