Wolverine ladies run rule Bedford, double up on Lenox

Taking good swings at the plate, which led to effective at bats, helped Nodaway Valley softball to back-to-back wins last week.

The Wolverines crushed Bedford 12-0 in three innings last Thursday before defeating Lenox on the road Friday, 8-4. A game earlier in the week at Martensdale-St. Marys was postponed due to inclement weather. It was being made up Monday, June 5.

“We had several kids with multiple hits in both of those games. The confidence [against Bedford] was huge for us, and then in the Lenox game, we went up, they rallied, and then we went back ahead. It was the same situation, that we had kids with multiple hits,” co-head coach Brian Eisbach said. “We had some defensive errors, but as we’ve talked about, when you don’t have a lot of practice time, you’re learning on the fly.”

Against Bedford, Izzy Eisbach, Jorja Holliday, Kynnady Van Eaton and Grace Klobnak had two hits each. Klobnak had three RBI while Lindsey Davis and Liv Laughery drove in two runs each. Davis had a home run.

In the circle, Holliday fired a two-hitter, striking out three, giving away no free passes.

At the plate, Holliday was 3-for-3 against Lenox, with four RBI. Fry made two hits as well. Davis and Klobnak had a hit each. While the defense did commit five blunders in the game, Holliday rang up 13 batters had hit one. The Tigers had 11 hits and five of the Wolverines’ eight runs were earned.

Holliday (.462 BA, 6 hits, 5 RBI) and Davis (.333 BA, 4 hits, 6 RBI) were Nodaway Valley’s hitting leaders coming into this week.

“Timing is the thing in high school. You’ll go against Martensdale and Southeast Warren, who both have really good pitchers who throw smoke, then you go against a younger pitcher who doesn’t throw as hard. The challenge is to sit back, keep our hands high,” Eisbach said. “We’ve had some girls step up with some timely bunts, and that has been nice. We want to be aggressive, but to be aggressive, you’ve gotta be on base.”

Nodaway Valley (3-2 overall, 3-1 in the Pride of Iowa Conference) had a busy week scheduled. After Monday’s contest at Martensdale-St. Marys, they were to host Southeast Warren Tuesday, face non-conference Earlham on the road Wednesday, host non-conference Griswold Thursday and host conference opponent Mount Ayr Friday.

Not only were the Wolverines’ POI foes for the week near the top of the league, the two non-conference opponents are good too.

“This is one of those weeks where you wish you would have it at the end of June when you have a lot of games under your belt, but at the same time, Southeast Warren and Martensdale are always good and our girls know what they have,” Eisbach said. “If we get through this week healthy and put the bat on the ball we can hopefully keep our confidence through this week. I’d like to say we’ll find a lot out about ourselves this week, but at the same time, it’s one game at a time, one inning at a time. It would nice to see instances where those kids have a good inning, here or there, who haven’t played a whole lot, then we can ride that confidence through the rest of the season.