Madison Wedding of North Union fields a ground ball during a Mid Ohio Athletic Conference game against Marion Harding on Wednesday. Wedding pitched a no-hitter during the Lady Cats’ 12-0 win in six innings.
(Journal-Tribune photo by Sam Dillon)
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The Lady Cats of North Union are like many teams this spring.
Due to inclement weather, they’ve played a game and then would have a week of cancellations or postponements that slows their momentum.
“We already love to play, we just need to play,” said NU head coach Dawn Draper. “All of these postponements or cancellations, it is almost a mental game now. We don’t even know what to expect because the weather is so crazy all the time.”
The slowing of the momentum was evident for the Lady Cats on Wednesday when they squared off against Marion Harding.
NU was able to win, 12-0, in an abbreviated six innings, but the Cats, who have been dominate through the majority of their games, didn’t score their first run until the fourth.
“We had a little slow start, but we had to adjust from playing to not playing Monday and then turning around and trying to get into the swing of things,” said Draper. “Seeing a fast pitcher versus a slow pitcher, we struggled through the first few innings.”
The Lady Cats held off the Lady Prexies through four innings with the help of a no-hitter by Madison Wedding. She notched six strikeouts for the game with five coming in the first four frames.
The real turn of events for the Lady Cats was when Avery Clark blasted a shot over the center-field fence that scored two runs.
“I said, ‘who wants to be my first girl to get on and give us a boost here’ and Avery (Clark) said ‘I got it,’” said Draper. “I think I said in the third inning that if we would have gotten her up then, we would probably have gotten on the scoreboard earlier than that.”
The round-tripper gave the Lady Cats 2-0 lead by the end of the fourth.
The injection of runs got the home side heated up on the cool evening in the fifth inning when the Lady Cats batted around the lineup.
Josie Duncan was able to find a base with a shot to the hot corner that the Harding third baseman couldn’t cleanly field.
Abby Davis singled and Madison Amstutz put up a fly ball in left that was caught. Clark reprised her roll at the plate with her second home run and fifth RBI to give the Cats a 5-0 lead.
NU kept its momentum going when Kennedy Ruhl hit a single through the third baseman and shor stop.
Freshman Laney Converse at the plate in a pinch-hitter’s role.
She ripped the ball over the left-field fence for a two-run homer to give NU a 7-0 lead. By the end of the fifth, the Lady Cats had a 9-0 lead going into the sixth.
Wedding was able to sit the Prexies down in order in the top of the sixth with a pop fly to left, groundout to shortstop and a strikeout.
Duncan kept the Lady Cats bats’ hot with a double. Davis reached first when she was hit by a pitch that moved Duncan into scoring position.
Amstutz ended the game with a three- run shot over center field to give North Union its seventh win of the season against no losses.
The Lady Cats will return to action today when they travel to River Valley.