GHV girls beat Lake Mills to end seven game losing streak

by Michelle Watson

The Garner-Hayfield-Ventura softball team ended a seven game losing streak late in the week to move its record to 5-11 overall.

Nashua-Plainfield 3, GHV 1

The GHV girls are going to work on getting back to basics, as they dropped their sixth game in a row to Nashua-Plainfield on Monday, June 10.

“Our main focus is going to be the basics, catching the ball, throwing the ball, hitting the ball.  It’s been tough for us to do all three of those on the same night,” said Coach Kaitlin Murphy.

Getting runners on base wasn’t the problem for the Cardinals, it was getting the timely hits to make something happen.

“Nashua-Plainfield did a great job of capitalizing on our errors, but we did not capitalize on theirs,” said Murphy.

The Cardinal’s lone run came in the second inning on a fly ball to right field by Kylie Hughes.  The sacrifice fly allowed Emily Van Dusseldorp to score.   

Nicole Upmeyer, Megan Oetken, Maddie Graham, Hughes and Kaitlyn Robinson all had one hit apiece.  Upmeyer’s hit was a double.

Rockford 7, GHV 6

The Cardinals came up short again in another close battle on Wednesday, June 12, against Rockford.

A walk-off left the Cardinals on the wrong end of a 7-6 defeat.  With the game tied 6-6, Rockford was at bat in the bottom of the seventh when a GHV error allowed one run to score.

“We, unfortunately, left too many runners on base and when you pair that with a couple errors here and there, we couldn’t get it done,” said Coach Kaitlin Murphy.  “We give ourselves the chance to win, we just have to give figure out how to get the bats going, especially with runners in scoring position.”

Despite the loss, the Cardinals collected eight hits.  Jayden Hughes led the offense with two hits in two at-bats.  She also had one RBI and scored two runs.  Graham also had two hits, one being a double. She had one RBI and scored one run.  Also collecting a hit apiece were Trinity Smith, Megan Oetken, Kylie Hughes and Kaitlyn Robinson.

Coach Murphy credits her pitchers for doing a fine job and keeping the team in games.  Maddie Graham took the loss for the Cards.  She lasted one inning, allowing zero hits and one run, while striking out one.  Kylie Hughes started the game on the mound.  She gave up six runs on nine hits over five and two-thirds innings, striking out one and walking one.

Algona 5, GHV 3

The Cardinals came out strong, but lost the lead late in the game when they faced Algona on Thursday, June 13.

GHV opened the game strong with two runs in the first innings.  Nicole Upmeyer got the game rolling with a home run that also brought in Jayden Hughes.

The Cards scored again in the second inning when Hughes hit a fly ball that allowed Kaitlyn Robinson to score, 3-0.  That was all the offense the Cards could come up with, falling 5-3 to the