Campus Weather
Ravens Softball roller coaster ride extends 350 Miles in 3 Days!
On Monday, the Ravens traveled to Mount Mercy University to play host to Holy Trinity at a neutral site. It’s a wonderful venue and great experience for everyone to play on a collegiate turf field. This is the second year of traveling North and playing in a contest like this, beating Columbus last year in its inaugural event. This year, Holy Trinity was the match-up invitation, but the offensive couldn’t find a way to punch through, despite hitting hard hit balls all night right at their defense. Sophomores Lydia Beachy and Erin Bontrager each collected hits, but Holy Trinity came up with the shutout of the Ravens 9-0. Sophomore Malia Yoder took the loss in the circle, but only surrendering 4 earned runs, scattering 8 hits, and striking out 11 Crusaders hitters along the way.
On Tuesday, the Ravens boarded the bus again, but this time traveling their normal route South to Winfield to play their North Division opponent in Winfield Mt. Union. After being shut-up in their two previous games, the Ravens hitters were determined to get things rolling again. After each team scored a run in their respective half of the 1st inning, the eruption finally came for the Ravens in their top half of the 2nd inning putting 7 runs on the board. They followed that up in 3rd inning with another 7 run explosion to then put the game away and sweep the Wolves on the season 15-2 in 3 innings (by Mercy Rule). It was the offensive explosion they’ve been waiting for to come through and it showed up this night.
Sophomore Delaney Shaw drove in four runs on two hits, including a double in the 2nd inning that drove in two. It was a RBI single by Erin Bontrager that extended the lead to 8-1, before the Wolves finally shut the door. Shaw also scored twice herself. In the 7-run 3rd inning, Freshman Adrianne Blauvelt and Zoey Curtiss reached base safely from a lead-off with a walk and a catcher’s interference call. Malia Yoder then drove Blauvelt on an RBI hard hit single. Following a Morgyn Nafziger walk, Shaw then came back up and knocked in Curtiss and Yoder. Kylee Statler then followed suit with an RBI single herself scoring Nafziger. Lydia Beachy joined the hit parade by hitting an RBI single scoring Shaw. Erin Bontrager and Freshman Claire Withrow each collected RBI ground-outs scoring Statler and Beachy as the result of the play and increasing the lead 15-2 along the way.
Sophomore pitching standout, Malia Yoder, earned the win allowing just 2 runs, none of them earned, one walk and 5 strikeouts on the night. Alongside the hitting parade, Malia Yoder tallied her 100th strikeout of the season! Only two others have reached that mark in Hillcrest history, Laura Stoltzfus and Laura Hochstetler (twice). Congrats Malia!
On Wednesday, the Southeast Iowa travel tour extended this time down to Central Lee in Donnellson for a Wednesday afternoon matinee game as the South Division leaders took on the Ravens as they showed their stout defense and patient hitting to beat Hillcrest 15-0.
The Ravens are back home on Thursday night against cross-town rival in Highland. JV games starts at 5:30pm, with the varsity game to follow. Then, on Friday, the Ravens complete their regular season schedule with a road trip to Columbus.
