For the Daily Journal
COLUMBUS
With daylight moving out and dark clouds moving in above the softball fields at Southside Elementary on Thursday night, Columbus North was hoping not to have to go to the top of the seventh against Greenwood.
So with the Bull Dogs leading 7-0 and runners on first and third with one out in the bottom of the sixth and sophomore slugger Maddi Rutan at the plate, coach Ron McDonald hinted to Rutan that it might be best to try to get to the 10-run-rule.
“I just told her, ‘End this. Look at the clouds coming in. They don’t look good,’” McDonald said.
Rutan heeded her coach’s advice. She blasted one over the scoreboard in left center to finish off a 10-0 victory.
The homer was the 11th of the season for Rutan, who broke North’s school record with her 10th in Monday’s win at Edinburgh.
Meanwhile, Rutan and Peri Foust combined on a one-hitter. Rutan allowed only a two-out hit in the first to Courtney Hankenhoff in her four innings.
Foust, who recently returned from a two-week layoff with COVID, threw the final two innings Thursday. Rutan and Foust were coming off a combined no-hitter at Edinburgh.
“The first pitcher (Rutan) was a little bit more aggressive,” Greenwood co-coach Greg Norwood said. “We’re just struggling to be be aggressive right now with our sticks. We played Mooresville last night two games and ended up with multiple errors, and it just made them a little more gun shy because I put a lot of pressure on them to hit, and it may have been too much. We’re just struggling to hit right now.”
The Bull Dogs (14-4) got all the offense they needed with a three-run first. Josie Lemmons led off with a triple and scored on a sacrifice fly by Rutan. Lillian Mackey added an RBI double in the inning.
In the second inning, Lexi Heafner smacked her first career home run to make it 4-0. North added two runs in the fourth to take a 6-0 lead. Mackey then homered off the scoreboard in left center with one out in the fifth to make it 7-0.
The Bull Dogs finished with nine hits.
“The only way we can really compete with really good teams is to hit our spots, and when we don’t hit our spots we struggle to have success,” Norwood said.
The Woodmen fell to 5-11.
“We can put together three or four good innings, and we kind of fall off the pace,” Norwood said. “So we’re mixing quite a bit up. We’ve changed our lineup drastically, and we’ve changed the rotation of our pitchers, so we’re hoping that can kind lead to a little bit more success. Our conference alone is really competitive, and then we have teams like this, so to play top teams on two nights back to back was just tough for us to compete the entire game.”