Sports

DCB plays small ball, wins big

By Matthew Semisch

04/28/2015

Most of the time, calling something both powerful and understated sounds like an oxymoron. It’s normally an incongruous statement, self-contradictictory to whatever it’s describing.

Normally.

What the Dakota College at Bottineau (DCB) softball team has done lately doesn’t fall under the realm of “normal.” The Ladyjacks, who won just one of their first 14 games this year, have won 10 of their final 14.

Four of those wins came last week at home against North Dakota State College of Science (NDSCS) in two doubleheaders at Tommy Turtle Park in Bottineau. 

DCB won 13-0 and 5-4 in a twin bill on Tuesday before coming away 11-5 and 8-5 victors on Wednesday.

Clearly, none of those were especially low-scoring affairs. That isn’t to say, though, that the Ladyjacks found their success by swinging for the fences all day both days.

That generally hasn’t been the Ladyjacks’ modus operandi this season. There have been a few very high-scoring games this season - a wind-aided 30-25 victory over Lake Region State on April 14 comes to mind - but DCB (11-17) has also only hit 15 home runs all season.

Three of DCB’s four wins last week over NDSCS saw the Ladyjacks playing more of a long game. After downing the Wildcats 13-0 in five innings in the first game, DCB rolled with NDSCS’s punches that followed and came away with a sweep.

DCB TAKES FIRST TWO

Tuesday’s first game of the teams’ four-game set wasn’t a contest for long. After scoring one run in the bottom of the first inning, DCB exploded for eight in the second and four more in the third before rolling to an easy win.

NDSCS quickly bounced back in Game 2, however, and very nearly picked up a split for the day. The Wildcats led 4-3 heading into the bottom of the seventh inning until DCB scored twice to walk off with a one-run victory.

“It wasn’t maybe the best thing having a score like that in the first one because the girls might’ve thought after that, ‘We can get these, no big deal,’” DCB head coach Allison Scherr said, “The thing is, though, that we can never just assume (a lead is) safe.
“Our lead is never going to be safe and that’s what we try to get through to the girls, and that was a problem in that second game.”

The Ladyjacks did enough to win, though, on both sides of the ball. DCB’s offense came alive on when needed, as the Ladyjacks’ five runs came on 12 hits and four NDSCS errors.

Infielder Amanda Cain had a big game at the dish, going 3-for-4 and scoring a pair of runs. Shortstop Tiffany Hummer, the Ladyjacks’ leading hitter this season with a .348 batting average, went 2-for-3, scored twice and drove one in.

DCB sophomore No. 1 pitcher Taylor Glass also had a solid outing in the week’s second game. After striking out seven NDSCS batters in Tuesday’s Game 1, Glass came right back and struck out 11 Wildcats in the second game of the two-day set.

Scherr and her Ladyjacks knew that picking up two more wins on Wednesday wouldn’t be easy, however. Two last-inning runs were needed to ensure a victory in Game 2, and DCB needed to put together more complete performances in Wednesday’s doubleheader.

“We obviously now know that we can get them, but we have to come back and play our game from the first pitch to the last one,” Scherr said after Tuesday’s sweep. “Hopefully we can come out on top again, but it’s been going well lately and we’ve been more mentally in it lately. 

“We’ve been a little bit more disciplined lately, but it’s a big mental thing, too. Everyone in our dugout has been on top of things for us and when we’re in it, we’re in it.”

LADYJACKS SWEEP

When the two teams reconvened on Wednesday afternoon, the Ladyjacks picked up where they left off the day before.

DCB exploded for four runs in each of the first two innings in Wednesday’s first game. The Ladyjacks then scored insurance runs in the fourth, fifth and seventh innings to cap off an 11-5 victory.

Freshman first baseman Marisol Rodriguez had the hottest bat for DCB. She finished the game 3-for-5 at the plate while driving in three runs.

Designated player Mariah Stein and outfielder Sara Schaefer also made big contributions offensively, each having batted in a pair of Ladyjack runs.

Glass went the distance again in the circle for DCB and played a key role of her own. NDSCS picked up five runs on eight hits, but 10 Glass strikeouts kept the Wildcats from digging further into DCB’s big early lead.

Next up on Wednesday afternoon was the fourth and final game of the two-day series. The Ladyjacks’ fourth game of the week also served as their final home game of the regular season.

Freshman pitcher Abby Mehling started the game but struggled early on. The Wildcats jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the top of the first inning and tacked on a fifth in the top of the second.

DCB’s offense came up big again, however, as the Ladyjacks scored five runs of their own in the first two frames. They then tacked on another three runs in the bottom of the fifth inning to take the lead for good.

Glass entered the game in relief in the fifth inning and pitched two shutout frames to pick up the win. She also struck out four Wildcat batters in the process.

Hummer led the Ladyjacks offensively in the series finale, going 3-for-5 at the plate and scoring three runs. DCB second baseman Paige Hollinger played an important role, too, by driving in two runs for the hosts.

The Ladyjacks’ sweep of their series with NDSCS capped an 11-day stretch in which DCB played 18 games. Within the final 14 games of that span, DCB picked up 10 wins to move to 11-17 on the season.

“I am just so proud of the girls for pushing through that many games in such a small amount of time,” Scherr said. 

“I mean, that’s a huge portion of our season in just two, two and a half weeks, and to have the energy to pull off all those wins and play hard in all those games, I’m proud of them.”

TOURNAMENT TIME

This weekend, DCB will host a NJCAA Region XIII play-in series against NDSCS. Century College of White Bear Lake, Minn., was originally scheduled to host a play-in triangular this weekend, but Century folded its softball team due to an accumulation of injuries.

DCB hosted last year’s play-in triangular with NDSCS and Century. The Ladyjacks defeated the Wildcats once and Century twice to clinch DCB’s first-ever berth in the Region XIII championships.

The site for this year’s regional finals has not yet been decided. 
The Region XIII champion will advance to this year’s NJCAA Division III national championships on May 14-16 in Rochester, Minn.