The season opened for the Frazee Lady Hornet softball team, as they took advantage of some good weather and rescheduling to play three games in their first week outside.
All three games were at home and all ended with victories for Frazee against Lake Park-Audubon, Bagley and Ashby.
The Lady Hornets were able to pick up three wins by the scores of 16-2, 13-3 and 5-3, respectively.
Against LP-A, Frazee had some solid bats to rack up 16 runs.
“It was really the first night out for both teams and the Hornets were able to take advantage of a solid combined pitching performance from Jo Shipman and Desiree Bauer,” said Frazee head coach Dave Trautman.
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The duo combined for a two-hitter while allowing two runs, while walking a total of five batters and striking out seven.
The young LP-A pitchers struggled a little more as they gave up eight hits and nine walks, while striking out two Hornet batters.
The Lady Hornets broke the game open early with nine runs in the second inning and seven in the third, to take a 16-0 lead.
Leading the way offensively for the Hornets was Autumn Mahoney and Kennady Barlund with two hits apiece and was followed by Jaden Ketter, Katie Smith, Josi Tappe and Mandy Donahue with one hit apiece.
Mahoney led the team in RBIs with four on the evening.
The next day, Bagley jumped to a quick 2-0 lead in the top of the first with three hits.
The Lady Hornets, however, answered with four runs in their half of the first as Ketter, Mahoney and Kaysee Gerving all had hits which led to runs.
Bagley picked up another run in the top of the second to make the score 4-3, but that would be it for the Flyers as Shipman and the Lady Hornet defense shut the door the rest of the way in.
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Frazee added two runs in the fourth inning, four more in the fifth and three in the bottom of the sixth to win the game by the score of 13-3.
Offensively, the Lady Hornets banged out 12 hits as Ketter and Mahoney had three hits apiece, while being followed by Barlund and Gerving, who had two hits.
Taylor Tappe and Mandy Donahue each had one hit. Mahoney led with four RBIs and Barlund had three in the run batted in category.
Shipman pitched the six-inning game, giving up seven walks, but also showed signs of dominance with 12 strikeouts.
Bauer made her first start on the mound against Ashby and had a good outing by pitching four innings, giving up three hits and six walks, but only allowing one run.
Shipman came in and pitched the final three innings for the Lady Hornets and gave up four hits and one walk, while allowing two runs.
Offensively, the Lady Hornets were held to just four hits in the game; but they were timely hits as Barlund had three hits and Katie Smith had the fourth one.
Smith’s hit led to two Hornet runners scoring and Barlund drove in a run with two of her hits.
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The other run for the Lady Hornets scored on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Shipman.
Ashby scored three runs on seven hits, seven walks and no Frazee errors.
“This was a game that was as much about the play that you don’t see on a stat sheet,” Trautman said. “There are many things which helped the Lady Hornets gain this victory and without any one of them it may not have happened.”
There were the two walks which Mahoney picked up and stole second base and scored on a Barlund hit.
There was a rundown of an Ashby base runner between first and second that had no less than five Hornet fielders involved.
There was the bases loaded situation with no outs in the top of the seventh and Shipman catching a line drive which led to a double play as she threw the ball to Barlund at third to erase their lead runner.
And there was the play of rightfielder Gerving, who threw out two base runners at first which were looking like base hits that would extend innings.
“These were all important things to the outcome of this game,” Trautman added.
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The Lady Hornets upcoming games are: Monday, April 21st at New York Mills at 4:30 p.m.; Thursday, April 24, at home with Barnesville for a doubleheader beginning at 4p.m. and Saturday, April 26, Frazee will be hosting a six-team tournament.
