The Kimball softball team played four games last week and improved with each game, finally culminating with a win over Litchfield on Friday. The week started at EV-W on Monday. The Cubs showed the rustiness of not having practiced for a week. (Eleven players missed the previous week on the band trip to New York City.) EV-W jumped out to a quick lead in the first two innings and the Cubs were never able to put together an offense to counter and the Eagles defeated the Cubs to start the week. Tuesday, defending CMC champion, Maple Lake came to town. With seven returning starters, the Irish experience definitely was an asset as they rode three home runs to build an insurmountable lead in a victory over the Cubs. Offensively, the Cubs did score three runs with Kim Schaefer and Brittany Simmons accounting for the three Kimball scores. As with the EV-W game, the Cubs again hurt their chances with errors by committing eight against EV-W and nine against Maple Lake. After a good practice on Wednesday, the Cubs faced Pierz on Thursday. The 4 o’clock game didn’t begin until almost 5 p.m. due to a mix-up in Pierz. The Cubs, for the first time this season, got off to a good start scoring two in the first and two more in the third inning, and took a 4-1 lead. Brittany Simmons started the game with a triple and along with hits from Kim Schaefer, Holly Garding, and Kayla Kastanek staked Kimball to the lead. The game turned in the fourth when the Cubs defense again broke down and Pierz took advantage of Kimball errors to score seven runs to take an 8-4 lead. The Cubs came back with two runs but Pierz added three unearned runs in the sixth and seventh innings. The Cubs also came back scoring two in the sixth and two more in the seventh and had the tying run on third base when the final out was make in a disappointing 11-10 loss. Litchfield was the final opponent of the week. Again, the Cubs got off to a good start. Simmons and Schaefer each scored in the first inning with RBI going to Garding and Mindy Hurrle. The second inning was the game breaker as the Cubs plated seven runs. Lindsey Ostly and Sonny Schiefelbein got the inning started and then four straight hits (Simmons, Amanda Kuseske, Schaefer, Garding, and Sammi Stewart-James) along with two walks gave Kimball a 9-0 lead. Litchfield countered with an earned run in the third, and then the big inning (which has plagued the Cubs in every game) came in the fourth. Three unearned runs were scored with two Kimball errors, but Kastanek, Schaefer, and Hurrle made fielding plays to get the outs and pitcher Ashley Schiefelbein shut down Litchfield’s hitters limiting the damage to three runs. The 9-4 score would hold for the rest of the game. Schiefelbein pitched three straight 1-2-3 innings and the Cubs committed no more errors and the game ended with Kimball on top by a 9-4 margin.
