Nodaway Valley softball entered the last game of the regular season this week with a 5-14 record overall and a 4-9 count in the Pride of Iowa Conference.
The Wolverines wrapped up the conference schedule on Friday, falling to Mount Ayr. That left them in eighth place in the conference, ahead of Lenox and Bedford, two teams they swept.
Most recently, the Wolverines took a 2-0 loss Tuesday, June 21 to Central Decatur, then lost 3-1 Wednesday to Orient-Macksburg and 8-3 on Thursday against Lenox.
Mount Ayr beat the Wolverines 10-0 on Friday. Head coach Abbey Queck was out for a few games due to illness but said she heard from assistant coach Brittney Baier that the game against Mount Ayr went a little bit better.
“The score obviously didn’t show it, but they said we played better against Mount Ayr,” Queck said. “We went farther into counts, had better at-bats, but we were still not producing those runs.”
NV had four hits against Central Decatur. Senior Whitney Lamb doubled in the game, otherwise Lindsey Davis, Jennifer Holliday and Ashlyn Gutierrez each singled. The team committed only two errors and Holliday had a five-hit outing in the pitcher’s circle with 11 strikeouts and two walks.
The Wolverines battled back with two runs in the third inning and one in the seventh against Lenox, after the Tigers jumped out to a 6-0 advantage coming out of the second inning.
Five hits is what NV got out of that game. Davis had two hits with a run scored and a stolen base, senior Maddax DeVault had one with two runs scored and was 2-for-2 stealing bases. Holliday had a hit and an RBI, as did eighth-grader Izzy Eisbach. Holliday allowed five hits, no earned runs and struck out five. All of Lenox’s runs were unearned, partially thanks to four errors the Wolverines committed in the field.
O-M eighth-grader Emma Boswell was 2-for-4 with two doubles and two RBI in the win against NV. Sophomore Kasyn Shinn had a hit and a run scored, as did junior Christa Cass. Kinsey Eslinger and Janesa Tonnberg each singled and Logann Carson doubled with an RBI. Boswell racked up 11 Ks in the game in a three-hit win.
DeVault had a double and a run scored against the Bulldogs. Davis hit a triple. Holliday had a single. DeVault and Lamb each stole a base. The Wolverines had three errors on defense. Holliday had six strikeouts. Two of the runs scored against her were earned, one was not. She hit one batter.
The Wolverines now switch their attention toward a Class 2A, Region 4 game set for 7 p.m. Friday, July 1 at Central Decatur.
“I think Central Decatur is a beatable team and it’s a good, even first game for us,” Queck said. “You can’t win ballgames if you don’t score runs. I’d like to see the girls start to produce some more runs. I don’t feel we’ve scored a ton recently. We’ve had a lot of losses. I think that’s hard on the girls too, but this week we’re going to focus more on hitting because you have to score to win ballgames.”