The Class B No. 6 Blair High School softball team started the two-day Bellevue East Invite on Friday with a 6-1 victory over their hosts.
It was a good taking-off point for the Bears (3-2 overall) against a tourney field filled with Class A competition.
“As long our defense stays the same and our bats stay alive, we'll be fine,” junior Leah Chance said.
Coach Jennifer Fangmeier's team went 2-2 overall on the Lied Activity Center Fields, topping Bellevue East 6-1 and Millard South 8-2, but losing to Elkhorn South 4-2 and Gretna 15-7.
First, though, the Bears beat host Chieftains with a six-run scoring streak. Down 1-0 Friday afternoon, senior Ally Lynch drew a bases-loaded walk during the second inning to tie the score. Claire Mann then pushed her team ahead by a run, scoring on a pitch past the Chieftain catcher.
Chance delivered an RBI single to continue the inning, giving BHS a 4-1 advantage. The junior rounded first base as Sophia Wrich scored and baited the Chieftains into a throw her way, allowing another runner — Lynch — to touch home plate.
“We practice trying to get into a pickle, just to allow the person on third to possibly score,” Chance said. “And (the Chieftain) wasn't even paying attention to the person on third, so I thought I would get a big lead to advance the girl.”
When asked how it felt executing the deception, the infielder grinned.
“It felt pretty good,” she said.
Chance later scored on a failed pickoff throw to third base before adding a fourth-inning sac fly. The five-run victory went down as a pitching win for Lynch, who struck out six Bellevue East batters.
“We figured out that the umpire really liked that inside corner and we learned that they could not touch an inside pitch,” the right-hander said, referencing the ump's strike zone. “So, we just kind of lived inside all day long.”
In addition, Bears Greta Galbraith and Joslyn Policky executed highlight defensive plays against the Chieftains. Galbraith, the left fielder, went to her knees and knocked down a fifth-inning bounding ball in the grass, picking it up and throwing to Chance on the bag for an out when the batter tried to leg out a double. Then, during the sixth frame, Policky dove out from behind the plate and caught a lazy pop out without even enough time to throw off her catcher's mask.
“Having those two girls out there, and having the whole team out there, it really helps,” Lynch said. “You know you can rely on them if you miss a pitch or they just get ahold of the ball.”
In its second game Friday, Blair led Elkhorn South 2-1 before falling by two runs. Tessa Villotta notched a first-inning RBI double during the first inning before Bria Scott crossed home plate in the third.
The Storm scored a pair of seventh-inning runs, however, winning the game. The loss forced the Bears into the 8 a.m. Saturday game against Millard South — a six-run victory.
Villotta notched a first-inning RBI single against the Patriots, but it was a six-run third inning that pushed coach Fangmeier's team past the No. 8 team in Class A. With Nessa McMillen, Villotta and Kalli Ulven on the bags with singles, Wirch added another for a 2-1 Blair lead. Anderson's bases-loaded free base added another score before Policky's two-RBI single broke the game open.
“(The pitch) was right down the middle,” the catcher, Policky, said. “She was pitching outside, so I was preparing for that.”
Instead, the ball wound up a little more inviting.
“I'll take down-the-middle any day,” she said.
Chance added a second two-RBI single, and Villotta later blasted a home run over the right-centerfield fence, as the Bears picked up the 8-2 win. Ulven pitched all six innings, striking out eight batters, including the last she faced.
Finally, in BHS' tourney finale, Fangmeier's team lost a 15-7 game to Class A No. 3 Gretna. The Dragons led 9-1 early and — despite homers by the Bears' Brooke Janning and Ulven — won convincingly.
Bears win road opener
McMillen, however, officially opened the Blair softball season with a first-inning RBI triple Thursday in Wayne.
The Bears beat the host Devils 12-1, notching five more runs during the third and six more in the seventh to put the road game away. The last 11 runs coach Fangmeier's team plated were products of two-out rallies. Mann's bases-clearing triple in the seventh-inning was one of the most substantial hits.
Ulven, meanwhile, earned the pitching win.
