Northeast continues to roll, picks up tenth win of the season
Jun. 9—GOOSE LAKE — After suffering their second loss of the season on Tuesday night, the Northeast softball team bounced back in a big way against Monticello on Wednesday night, beating the Panthers 10-0.
"They're just loose. They feed off of each others energy. The dugout is never down and they know it is a long season," Head coach Travis Eversmeyer said. "When you lose it's onto the next game. You don't have time to mope about it."
It all got started in the bottom of the first inning when the Rebels exploded, scoring seven runs to jump out to a much needed hot start to take the early lead.
"A lot of base hits and good base running and we jumped on them." Eversmeyer said.
The Rebels then added another run in the second inning to extend the lead to eight. Good pitching paired with good defense was a big key in this one.
In the top of the third, pitcher Madison Kluever continued to pitch well, sitting down the batters in order.
"All year they've been solid. They know their pitcher is going to throw strikes and they don't get complacent. They just make every routine play it seems like and that gives us a chance every night." Eversmeyer said.
In the fourth Monticello threatened the shutout with a leadoff double. However, the Rebels defense was not fazed in the slightest. A close play at first base saw the first out of the inning as the runner advanced to third base. The Rebels would get out of the inning when they doubled up the runner on a line out to the second baseman, she made the throw to third in time to get the runner out and hold onto that 8-0 lead.
"It's huge. Last night we had three of those where we doubled them up on a line drive and I just love how they move on to the next play all the time. They don't celebrate that they made a play, they are looking for that next play." Eversmeyer said.
The next inning and a half was all three up, three down as neither team could muster up much offense.
The sixth inning rolled around and the Rebels were able to work out of a jam after giving up back to back one out singles. Pitcher Danica Eberhart was able to force a couple of pop flies into the outfield to escape yet another jam.
The Rebel offense came back to life in the bottom of the sixth with three straight singles to start the inning. The third of which came off of the bat of Brynnlin Kroymann which scored the ninth run of the game. Kluever followed it up with a single into shallow left field to score the game winner as the Rebels won 10-0 in six innings.
"We're feeling good. We obviously have work to do. We moved up a class to 3a this year so we're just getting a little bit better everyday." Eversmeyer said.
It was a big bounce back win after the team lost a tough 3-1 matchup to their 4a opponent, North Scott the night before. Despite the loss they were able to learn from it and put up some more runs on Wednesday night.
"They don't fear who they play which is a phenomenal thing." Eversmeyer said.
The Rebels are back in action again Thursday night, hosting Tipton at 6:30 p.m.
