LRSC softball team/Photo by Noah Clooten
The Lake Region State College softball team made a valiant effort, but ultimately fell on the second day of the NJCAA Division II, Region XIII Softball Tournament. The team’s season is over.
The sixth-place Royals began the tournament with a 12-8 win over fourth-place Williston State College on Thursday. They put an 18-hit attack on the Tetons, led by four hits from both Ella Neider and Madden Wiebe, and three hits from both Morgan Cervantes and Darian Bender.
LRSC trailed 1-0 early on, but broke out with nine runs over the next three innings. Cervantes and Maggie Bender hit RBI doubles in the third inning, while Neider, Cervantes and D. Bender all recorded two-out RBI hits in the fifth.
In the circle, D. Bender kept WSC to one run through the first four innings, and the Royals led 9-1. The Tetons got to her in the fifth, scoring five runs without Bender recording an out. They rallied for two more in the next two innings against Madison Dauphinais, cutting the lead to 9-8.
But LRSC regained a comfortable lead with three runs in the top of the seventh, coming on three straight singles by Whitney Rozdeba, Wiebe and M. Bender. Dauphinais threw the final three innings in the circle, and the Royals won by four to keep playing.
Their second game came later that day against a tough team, second-place Dawson Community College. The Deacons won handily, 11-0, to send the Royals to the losers’ bracket. Neider and M. Bender collected the only LRSC hits in the five-inning affair. Rozdeba allowed six runs in 1 2/3 innings, while M. Bender surrendered four runs in 2/3 of an inning.
Five runs in each of the second and third innings sunk the Royals.
So they moved down to the losers’ bracket, where they would have had to win their next four games to stay alive. They faced Dakota County Technical College and lost 13-10 in a game that featured loud offensive attacks from both teams in the early innings.
The Royals got out to a 2-0 lead in the first. D. Bender hit an RBI double, and later scored on a passed ball. But Bender surrendered six runs in the bottom half. The Blue Knights collected six hits, took the lead on a bases-loaded hit by pitch and even executed a steal of home. The Royals found themselves down 6-2 after an 11-batter inning.
They stormed right back in the top of the second. Neider hit a three-run homer to bring LRSC within one, knocking out DCTC’s starting pitcher in the process. The Royals kept rolling, and went ahead on a two-run double by Wiebe after D. Bender knocked her second double of the game.
It was a five-run display for LRSC. The Royals led 7-6 after only three total frames of softball.
Bender nearly got through the second inning unscathed, but a pair of two-out hits brought in two runs for the Blue Knights. The seesaw swung back in the other direction, giving DCTC an 8-7 lead after two eventful innings.
A clutch RBI double by Neider tied it back up in the top of the third. It was Neider’s second hit and fourth RBI already. Through the first five half-innings, the teams combined for 16 runs and 17 hits.
Bender threw a 1-2-3 bottom of the third, finally recording the first scoreless frame of the day. The offensive downpour from both teams slowed down. But the Blue Knights found their way back ahead, 9-8, on a two-out single in the bottom of the fourth.
DCTC extended its lead in the fifth, tacking on a pair of two-run singles. The Royals fell into a five-run hole.
They got two back in the sixth on a two-out, two-run single by M. Bender. But that was all they could muster, failing to keep up with the Blue Knights’ offense. The final score was 13-10.
LRSC’s season ends after going 14-33 overall.
