The Fort Calhoun softball team responded to a season-opening home loss with a dominant showing Saturday in North Bend.
The Pioneers (3-1 overall) won the NBC Invite, going 3-0 against Schuyler, Blue River and the host Tigers. Coach Mandy Taylor's team outscored their opposition 32-5 with Anna Taylor and Lucie Larsen combining for 22 strikeouts and the pitching wins.
FCHS started the tourney with a 14-0 win against the overmatched Schuyler Warriors. They scored 10 first-inning runs and won in three frames.
Kaitlyn Welchert, Addie Benoit, Anna Taylor, Larsen, Bryanna Bender and Izzy Greenough all knocked in FCHS runs during the first inning. Notably, Benoit, Taylor and Welchert all notched their first homers of the season.
Then, against a Blue River Panthers softball team from David City, coach Taylor's team earned its spot in the NBC tourney finals. The Pioneers won 5-1 with another fast start.
FCHS batted first with Welchert hitting into an error to score the game's first two runs. Then, with a single out, Anna Taylor hit an RBI double for a 3-0 lead.
Blue River cut its deficit to two runs, but two more Calhoun runs — produced by Larsen and Bender — in the sixth inning put the game out of reach.
Finally, against North Bend, the Pioneers built an 8-0 lead and won, 13-4. Pitcher Anna Taylor and her defense allowed four second inning runs, but none otherwise.
FCHS led from the start thanks to Taylor's first-inning sac fly. Sam Brewer's bases-clearing double made the final 4-0 and the Pioneers were off to the races.
Pioneers drop home opener
Fort Calhoun officially started the regular season Thursday against the Omaha World-Herald's sixth-ranked team in Class C, West Point GACC.
Coach Taylor's team briefly led 5-4 at home, but the Bluejays scored 10 fifth-inning runs to win by run rule, 14-5. FCHS nearly got out of the decisive inning with a tie score, but back-to-back attempts at home plate force outs failed when the throws went off-target.
“With the bases loaded, I honestly think the pressure was getting to us,” Brewer, a junior, said after the game.
Before the miscues, the Pioneers had orchestrated their own comeback from down 4-0. Pitcher Anna Taylor and her defense kept GACC to just one run over the second, third and fourth innings, while the home team tallied five of its own.
“I think our goal was to just come back and prove who we are as a team this year,” Brewer said.
First, Larsen, a Calhoun sophomore, cut her team's deficit to 4-1 with a second-inning ground-rule double. The two-out knock plated Benoit.
Then, during the third inning, Welchert's double and Benoit's single pulled the Pioneers within 4-3. Taylor kept it that way during the top of the fourth frame, tallying her fifth and sixth strikeouts of the game.
“My outside fastballs were really working because that's what the umpire liked,” the right-handed pitcher said.
Her change-up worked, too.
“I kept catching people off guard,” Taylor noted.
Fort Calhoun later tallied its first lead of the season with Greenough, a freshman, at the plate. Brewer and Kaylee Taylor reached base before their young teammate hit the ball down the right field line for a two-RBI single.
“I think that was a really big moment for her,” Anna Taylor said.
It didn't last long, though, as the Bluejays loaded the bases and scored 10 times during the next half inning.
On Saturday, though, it was the Pioneer producing high-scoring innings in North Bend.
