IMS falls to big inning

By Doug Brenneman, JOURNAL Sports

KALONA -- The beginning of the Iowa Mennonite School and Cardinal High School Southeast Iowa Super Conference softball game didn?t start on time and ended sooner than scheduled Wednesday in Kalona when the visitors scored seven runs in the fifth inning.

The Cardinal team arrived late due to getting stuck behind a cavalcade of tractors, then ended the game early by the 10-run rule.

IMS kept fighting until the end, scoring once in the bottom of the fifth and leaving two runners on base before losing 15-5.

?The girls are trying and the more they try, the more we improve,? IMS coach Kathryn Ney said.

The visitors scored three runs in the top of the second inning and two more in the third.

That did not faze the home team. IMS put up four runs in the bottom of the third to get within 5-4.

?We have been striking out too much and not putting the ball in play,? Ney said. ?We have had a lot of called third strikes. Yesterday in practice our focus was on two-strike hitting. I thought we did a nice job of that today. Instead of 10 strikeouts, we had five and I think only two of those were looking. We are going to take small victories. That?s what I?m going to do. I?m proud of them to improve on something that we specifically worked on. Another thing was battling with two outs. We did that well. We got on a number of times with two outs. I like seeing that too. We are not giving up.?

IMS catcher Avery Blauvelt led IMS at the plate, going 3 for 3 with a double, one run batted in and two runs scored.

?Avery had a great game at bat,? Ney said. ?Behind the plate, Avery did great too. She made a couple plays for us defensively.?

Suzanna Yoder and Rubye Ney both went 2 for 3 with a double and a run scored each. Joya Schrock also connected for a double.

?Suzanna at shortstop had a nice game,? the coach said. ?She was moving all over the place on defense.?

The defense was lacking, however.

?I do see some good things but we had a lot of errors,? Coach Ney said. ?I think we made eight. We have more work to do. With three more games this week, we have plenty of chances to make improvements. And that?s what we will concentrate on.?

Hannah Harris gave up 15 hits in the circle with two walks and three strikeouts. Six runs were unearned.

?I am concerned about my pitcher,? Coach Ney said. ?I want her to stay healthy. We need to back her up better. They are strong hitting team. They were just smacking the ball.?

The Comets had a big inning with seven runs scored in the fifth.

?We tried to help our defense by adjusting to where they were hitting,? Coach Ney said. ?We had them slide over a couple steps or move in for a batter or move back. If we told them to play in, they would put it past us. If we told them to move back, they hit little liners that would drop in.?

IMS is 1-9 and plays a doubleheader at Lone Tree today. Cardinal is 5-9.

?I thought we did some things well, but there is definitely room for improvement,? Ney said.