Julia McIvor (Photo by Noah Clooten)
DEVILS LAKE — Devils Lake softball won three of its first four games this season.
But the Firebirds ran into a fast, strong, resilient West Fargo team that completely overpowered them on Tuesday. Devils Lake (3-5, 2-8) lost a two-point EDC game against West Fargo (7-9, 8-5) by a score of 18-5. The Firebirds scored all of their runs in the final inning, but it wasn’t nearly enough to overcome a busy first three innings for the West Fargo offense.
“The main message is we can’t be in sloth mode,” Devils Lake head coach Courtney Loegering said. “We’re running things too slowly. It’s kind of been a pattern here, and I told them that I sound like a broken record. We can’t till the fifth inning to start hitting the ball.”
The Packers grabbed five in the first inning against starter Tylie Brodina. It started innocently enough, with a leadoff walk and then a popout to catcher Ava Beck. Three-hitter Grace Vetter roped one to the right side on the ground, but it was hit too hard for first baseman Riley Remmick to react to, getting West Fargo on the board.
A walk loaded the bases, before Brodina induced a lineout to shortstop Julia McIvor for the second out. But the inning spiraled on three more walks and a missed-catch error on a fielder’s choice attempt at third base. Two runs scored on wild pitches, and the fifth walk of the inning drove in a run to make it 5-0. Eleven Packers batted in the inning.
“The fundamentals — we’ve gotta figure that out,” Loegering said. “Sometimes we are struggling with our pitching, and so our pitchers need that backup, and need to know that their team can make routine plays.”
The second inning picked up where the first inning left off, with back-to-back walks. Brodina then induced three straight pop-ups — the first was caught, but the second one fell in foul territory and the third one dropped unluckily in right field to load the bases.
When Brodina threw strikes, she often got outs or soft contact. The issue was throwing strikes consistently.
“When she’s throwing strikes, she’s pitching really well,” Loegering said.
A run scored on a wild pitch. Brodina then induced another soft infield fly, but it popped out of McIvor’s mitt to load the bases back up. On a 2-2 count, Brodina hit a batter to make it 7-0.
Loegering called a meeting in the circle. After some deliberation amongst the Firebirds, McIvor took over for Brodina. Brodina slid back to shortstop after 2 1/3 innings in the circle.
“I don’t know what’s kind of going on,” Loegering said. “[Brodina] did get cleated pretty bad during the Shanley game, and since then, she’s been really struggling throwing strikes. I know her knee’s kind of bugging her a little bit with that.”
Loegering said the decision for Brodina to come out of the circle was Brodina’s own.
“‘Well, I’m not helping the team out,’” Loegering said of what Brodina told her. “So that’s when Julia came in and stepped up. And she told the team, ‘I’m pitching strikes. Be ready for them to hit the ball. I’m not trying to do anything fancy.’”
McIvor got ahead 0-2 on her first batter before running the count even and surrendering a two-run single into left-center. Another bases-loaded walk made it 10-0.
The inning finally came to an end on a ground ball that hit a West Fargo runner. The Packers had scored their 10 runs thus far on just four total hits.
The Firebirds’ offense, meanwhile, had few answers against the hard-throwing Brynlee Rheault. They went down in order in the first, and got only a one-out single from Taylor Leben in the second. Rheault struck out two in the second inning.
McIvor stayed in the circle for the third inning. Three batters in, she induced a popout to herself to hold runners on the corners. But West Fargo went on to score seven more runs in the frame on six hits and three walks. It was 17-0, with the Packers having batted around in all three innings.
They added one more in the fourth inning on a single and an errant throw to third base.
Brodina smacked a leadoff double in the bottom of the fourth for Devils Lake’s second hit. Madison Harris worked a nice plate appearance that ended in a walk to put a second runner on. With two outs, Jossalin Carpenter hit one well, but it was caught in left-center to end the inning.
McIvor finished out the rest of Devils Lake’s innings in the circle. She fired a scoreless fifth, working around a pair of two-out walks with a soft popup in the infield. She threw 3 2/3 innings overall.
“As a leader, she really shows [gutsiness] a lot,” Loegering said. “She steps up and talks to kids… So she really is a captain.”
The Firebirds avoided the shutout in the final frame. Remmick reached on an error, and Tori Mikkelson snuck one through for a single. That set up an RBI opportunity for nine-hitter Livia Nelson, who lined an RBI single to get Devils Lake on the board.
After an RBI single by Beck, Brodina and McIvor each legged out back-to-back infield singles. It was five straight hits for Devils Lake to cut the deficit to 18-4.
One more scored on a missed-catch error by the West Fargo third baseman, and the Firebirds fell by 13 in the end. Rheault struck out the last three batters of the game to finish with seven punchouts overall.
Devils Lake continues a hard schedule with a home game against Fargo North (5-2, 5-2) on Thursday at 4:30 p.m. and then a road contest against West Fargo Sheyenne (4-4, 5-2) on Friday at 4:30 p.m.
“Those are gonna be two tough games,” Loegering said. “We just want the girls to come here and actually play how they can play. They’ve showed it a couple games so far this year, but it seems like we haven’t been able to find that niche just yet. So as long as we can hit the ball each inning and not wait to get going, I think we’re gonna be okay.”
