Coldwater's offense breaks loose

ST. HENRY - Coldwater's softball team took advantage of St. Henry's sloppy play to score early runs and the Cavaliers rolled to an 11-2 win over the Redskins in Midwest Athletic Conference action on Thursday at the Wally Post Athletic Complex.

Coldwater (4-4, 1-1 MAC) smacked seven hits and took advantage of four St. Henry errors, two wild pitches and two passed balls to score eight runs in the first three frames. The Redskins committed a total of five errors, threw two wild pitches and had four passed balls which led to 11 runs for the Cavaliers.

Coldwater's offense connected for a season-high 12 hits, including four doubles. Joelle Hemmelgarn (three RBI) and Emily Hosbach led the Cavaliers' offensive attack with three hits apiece while Angie Klosterman, Brittany Borgerding and Hemmelgarn each scored a pair of runs.

"The thing I told the kids after the game was that in every game there are going to be pressure situations. Did they hit the ball? Yes. Did we make some mistakes? Yes. But the thing is that we just did not make the plays we needed to make in pressure situations today," said St. Henry coach Melissa Starkey. "We got down five or six runs early and that makes it tough to come back from."

"In our first three games, I think we had five hits total and on Monday against Minster, we had five hits. I thought tonight we came out relaxed and hit the ball," said Coldwater coach Ken Fisher. "We were able to time up their pitches and get some good hits."

"The first batter of the game - Joelle Hemmelgarn - hit a double to leftfield and that is what we needed from a lead off batter," continued Fisher. "I thought we did a great job of executing bunts, we did a good job getting runners over and then we were able to get the runners in with the big hit."

St. Henry (3-5, 1-1 MAC) totaled 10 hits but were only able to score two runs. The Cavaliers played solid defense behind starting pitcher Brittany Umstead as they did not commit an error.

Umstead struck out just one batter but did not walk a batter and induced 15 groundball outs. Umstead also recorded the first out in six of the seven innings.

"Brittany pitched an excellent game tonight," said Fisher. "We talked about getting the lead off batter in as many innings as we can. Brittany threw strikes, she made them hit the ball and the defense made all the plays that we needed behind her.

"We just seemed to be mentally in the game in every aspect tonight," continued Fisher. "I am really happy with the way Brittany is coming around. We have other pitchers, but she is coming around and doing a great job for us.'

St. Henry plays again at home on Monday hosting Minster while Coldwater travels to Maria Stein to face Marion Local today.