Varsity softball team now 6-1 in conference play

By SUE RIEDER
sports@beeherald.com

 The Greene County varsity softball team had a good week winning all of their league games versus CMB, South Hamilton, and Nevada before losing to non-conference foe Perry.

Greene County pitcher Marissa Promes may have given up a home run early in the game, but that was the only run that the Raiders got in the Rams 6-1 victory over CMB on June 4. Promes refocused and shut down the Raider offense for the rest of the night by striking out eleven batters, walking no one, and scattering four other hits throughout the last five innings. Greene County’s hitting seemed to come alive in the third, fourth, and fifth innings when they got nine of their total 13 hits. Hannah Onken had a great night at the plate serving up a single, a double, and a solo home run. Kayla Mobley drove in three of Greene County’s six runs with two singles and a triple. Others contributing to the offense were Hannah Promes with a double and a single, Sydney Koch with a  double, and Emily Christensen, Bailey Godwin, and Carleigh Paup who all had one single.

Greene County got another 6-1 road victory over South Hamilton on June 6, but not without a little drama. The offense seemed to be rolling along well as Paup got two RBI’s on an inside the park home run, Marissa Promes drove in two runs with a single, and Tressa Rasmussen and Onken were each credited with an RBI on their hits. But after the second inning, the Rams scoring came to a halt. Fortunately, pitcher Marissa Promes held the Hawks to two hits. South Hamilton’s Ady Wintermote got a solo home run in the second to get the home team on the board, but was stranded on base when she got the Hawk’s other hit in the fourth. South Hamilton had more base runners via Ram errors, but Promes got some timely strike outs, and the defense made the plays that they needed to keep the Hawk’s from closing the gap. “I thought we were aggressive in the first couple of innings and then backed off,” said coach Tom Kennedy. “We usually play good defense, but had an off night tonight and were still able to get the win. Marissa pitched well the entire game, but especially in the last two innings, when she struck out five of the six batters that came to the plate.”

The Rams improved their conference record to 6-1 on the season when they defeated Nevada 7-4 on June 9. The Cubs came into the contest 1-5 in the league, but they have girls on the team that are still playing on the school’s soccer team 19-0 soccer team that just advanced to the state tournament, so some of their squad is gone part of the time. Coach Kennedy indicated that the Cubs were quite competitive when the Rams played them. Marissa Promes gave up eight hits, a few more than usual, but she also struck out 11 and kept her walks down to two. Promes gave up all of her runs in the fourth inning, but some Ram errors contributed to Nevada’s offensive success. The score was still knotted 4-4 in the top of the seventh when Onken hit a two run homer to put Greene County ahead. The Rams added another run in the seventh to increase their lead, and held the Cubs scoreless in the bottom of the inning to secure the win. Besides Onken’s home run, the squad got a double from Emma Sadorris , two singles from Sydney Koch, and one single each from Kayla Mobley, Christensen, Paup, Promes, and Rasmussen.
Greene County suffered their only loss of the week when Perry defeated them 5-0 in non-conference action on June 10. This is the first time this season that the varsity softball team has been held scoreless, but Perry pitcher Emma Olejniczak allowed only four Ram hits and none of those were in the same inning. Since the freshman hurler only walked one batter and hit one batter, and the Blue Jays did not make any defensive errors, there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for Greene County to score.  Marissa Promes and Emma Saddoris both smacked doubles, and Sydney Koch and Carleigh Paup provided singles in the game. MacKenzie Dennhardt pitched all six innings for Greene County giving up six hits and one earned run, while striking out one and walking five Blue Jay batters.

              1    2    3    4    5    6    7    R    H    E
CMB       0    1    0    0    0    0    0    1    5    0
Rams     0    0    1    1    4    0    0    6    10   1

              1    2    3    4    5    6    7    R    H    E
Rams     2    4    0    0    0    0    0    6     10  5
SH         0    1    0    0    0    0    0    1    2    1

              1    2    3    4    5    6    7    R    H    E
Rams      0    0    1    3    0    0    3    7    9    4
Nev         0    0    4    0    0    0    0    4    8    4

             1    2    3    4    5    6    7    R    H    E
Rams     0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0     4    4
Perry      0    0    3    0    2    0    X    5    6    0