After having their best week of the season last week by winning three out of four games, the Cubs suffered through a tough week losing four close games two of them by a single run. The main problem for the Cubs was a lack of offense as they had 5, 6, 4, and 6 hits in their four games which produced 1, 4, 2, and 3 runs. Another issue was letting the opposition get the jump on them. In three of the four games the opposition jumped out to leads of three or more in the first two innings. Against Pierz the Cubs fell behind right away and couldn’t mount a sustained offense. Holly Garding was the only player with multiple hits and Cubs left 12 runners on base as Pierz was able to bring home their base runners to secure the victory. BBE continued the trend on Tuesday as they jumped out to a 3-0 lead before the Cubs got going. Garding and Kayla Kastanek each had two hits and scored in the second to cut the gap to 3-2. Kim Schaefer and Garding scored in the fourth as the Cubs tied the game 4-4. BBE scored once in the fifth and that ended the scoring as the Cubs couldn’t get they tying run home even though they had five runners on in the last three innings but could manage only three hits and none with runners in scoring position. The game ended with a tough 5-4 loss. Ashley Schiefelbein pitched a gem of a game on Thursday. After having nine strikeouts vs. BBE, she followed that up with six more K’s against Rockford without walking a batter. She allowed no earned runs but the Cubs were saddled with another one run loss 3-2. No player had more than one hit and the Cubs managed only four for the game. Still the Cubs went into the bottom of the sixth with a 2-1 lead. Rockford scored twice using two errors and a bunt to take a 3-2 lead without a base hit. The score stood up and the Rockets took their second one run victory over Kimball (the first game was 6-5 in eight innings). The week concluded against Holdingford. The Cubs gave up two runs to start the game but Heather Ryan scored to cut the lead to 2-1. Sammi Stewart-James scored in the second to tie the game at 2. But the Cubs would manage only one more run on three hits for the rest of the game with only four more base runners. Two double plays thwarted potential rallies. For the game Kimball had six hits with Heather Ryan and Kayla Kastanek accounting for two each. What remained was the fourth straight loss of the week and a tired and frustrated Kimball team was ready for a weekend respite. The regular season concludes this week with non-conference games against Swanville and St. John’s Prep before finishing CMC action vs. HLW-W on Thursday. The Subsection playoffs begin Monday, May 21, at a time and place to be decided at the seeding meeting on Wednesday, May 16. Gary Riess, coach
