Trailing Pella 2-1 in the third inning, the Norwalk softball team plated 11 unanswered runs and defeated the Dutch 12-2 in five innings Friday night at Norwalk. The game was streamed live on KNIAKRLS.com.
The Warriors, ranked fifth in Class 4A, completed a three-game season sweep of Pella and improved to 16-3 overall and 12-1 in the Little Hawkeye Conference. They have won 15 of their last 17 games. The Dutch lost their fourth straight contest and are now 8-13 overall and 4-8 in league play.
Pella scored an unearned run in both the first and third innings off Norwalk ace Zadie Wadle and held a 2-1 lead when momentum took a drastic switch in the bottom of the third.
Following a Nyah Hulbert single and a Dutch error, Warrior junior Kaylee Cary blasted her first official home run of the season to make it 4-2. Norwalk would tally six total runs in the inning, capped by Mei Grant’s RBI single and Hulbert’s two-run double.
Norwalk head coach Beau Livingston noted that Cary also homered against Boone on June 7, but that long ball was nullified when the game was suspended by rain. Friday’s three-run shot will go into the books and was certainly the chief turning point of the night.
“It was a bomb,” Livingston said. “She’s seeing it well, striking it, and it’s just a matter of time for her. She’ll probably hit a few more here by the time we’re done.”
Livingston added that the team’s approach at the plate is improving game by game as a lot of hard work in practice transfers over to live at-bats. The Warriors have homered four times in their last three games, including Kady Vandemark’s opposite field solo shot in the fourth.
Norwalk ended the game early by scoring six runs in the fifth without virtue of a hit. Six walks and four run-scoring wild pitches brought about the 10-run mercy rule.
Hulbert, Jaylynn Brandt, Cary, Vandemark, Addi Downe and Jada Livingston all scored two runs for the Warriors, who outhit Pella 9-3. Hulbert, Vandemark and Morgan Weeks finished with two hits apiece.
Wadle, now 11-2, pitched all five innings for the win, striking out eight and walking none in an abbreviated three-hitter.
Pella leadoff batter Ava Curry had two hits for the Dutch, scoring the team’s first run of the game and driving in the other. Saige DeJong took the loss, surrendering nine hits and eight runs (only three earned) in four innings of work.
Pella will return to action Monday, playing a varsity doubleheader at Newton.
Norwalk is back at it today, facing a pair of state-ranked opponents in Sigourney and Knoxville at the Oskaloosa Indian Classic. The Warriors’ games will start at 9:15 a.m. and 12:45 p.m., respectively.