Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Minnesoa Valley Lutheran's Jess Meunier singles in the fourth inning of a nonconference softball game against Waterville-Elysian-Morristown on Friday at MVL High School in New Ulm. hit.
NEW ULM — Minnesota Valley Lutheran University struggled to maintain its early success at the plate in Friday's nonconference softball game against Waterville-Elysian-Morristown.
Meanwhile, Buccaneers starting pitcher Alix Welske took plenty of hits from his teammates in a 12-1 win over the Chargers in five innings at MVL High School.
The game ended in the fifth inning due to the 10-point lead rule.
Werske pitched five innings and won, allowing one earned run on five hits and one walk, with five strikeouts. For WEM, Robin Schwichtenberg went 2-for-4 with two doubles and an RBI, and Alena Atherton added a home run.
Katelyn Stadic pitched five innings, allowing four earned runs on six hits and six walks, and suffered the loss with three strikeouts. Ashlyn Rodewald led the chargers at bat going 1-for-2 with a double and an RBI, and Kenna Dressel added a triple.
WEM took a 2-0 lead in the first inning on Atherton's two-run home run, but MVL collected three hits in the bottom of the inning to give them one run. All of the hits came with two outs, starting with a Carly Prahl single. Rodewald then hit a hit-and-run double to left to score Prahl, then Grace Onken continued the hit parade with a single to right.
However, Rodewald was picked off at third base to end the inning.
Verske then had back-to-back 1-2-3 innings in the second and third as he helped his team score more runs.
After that first inning, MVL's only offense was an infield hit by Jess Meunier in the fourth inning and a two-out triple by Dressel in the fifth inning.
“I think they got a little excited and started pulling their heads a little bit instead of concentrating on the pitch and sticking their heads in and watching the ball come in.” MVL head coach Katie Scherer said.
After allowing two runs with two outs in the first, WEM scored three runs in the second inning after a throwing error. He added another point with a double, giving WEM a 5-1 lead.
In the fifth inning, the Buccaneers batted around without even needing to swing the bat all the time. In this inning, WEM led 12-1 with 3 hits, 2 walks, and 3 MVL errors. Schwichtenberg had a double in the inning, and Kaydin Judd added a two-run single.
“We've been talking a lot about errors.” Scherer said. “We've come a long way. At the beginning of the year, we had almost five errors a game. We've brought it down, some games we only had one or two. I Our goal is to get back into that zone. We know we're not perfect, so we'll probably get there once a game, and it would be great if we could do that, so we'll just be consistent in practice. Try to stay mentally focused as well. There were some mental mistakes, especially today where we saw a couple that didn't think about it.”
WEM, currently 5-9 overall, will host Blooming Prairie on Monday.
The MVL, currently 2-12 overall, opens the regular season next week with three conference games against Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop (0-14) and several other young teams that have struggled this season in Buffalo. I will finish it. Lake-Hector-Stewart (2-11).
MVL will first travel to Winthrop on Monday to take on GFW, then take on BLHS in a doubleheader on Tuesday.
“Our thinking has not changed much.” Scherer said. “I think we still need to go into the field and treat them with respect. We haven't seen BLHS. We saw it last year, but we didn't play against the national team, so I It will be a new game for us, so we just have to make sure we do the basics well while building on what we did in practice. [key]”
