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HARTINGTON - What the Hartington 14U Penguin softball team lacks in quantity it more than makes up for in quality.
There are only four true 14 and under players on the roster which includes 15 players. 11 of which are pulled up from the Penguin 12U team.
Nora Lange, Vayda Lippert, Myrisa Lammers and Natalee Hart are the true four and all four play up on the Penguin 18U squad, but they have played three games thus far this season, and their coach thinks they are more than all right.
“They’re a fun group that I think will be really successful moving forward,” 14U coach Brice Grutsch said. “It’s just a small group and we have to move the 12U’s up to field a team.”
Which is exactly what the Penguins did in the beginning of the season.
The Penguins were undefeated in May, defeating Tri County Northeast (Emerson) 13-4 and Crofton 7-6.
They lost their first game and what has turned out to be their last game as a group, 12-3 to Verdigre on the road, June 4.
“We won’t have anymore games this season, unfortunately,” Grutsch said. “We didn’t have a lot on the schedule and had to back out of the league tournament and one more game because we will be missing a bunch of girls at that time.”
The game against Verdigre was a bit of a pitching problem for the Penguins.
“We tried all of our pitchers and just couldn’t find the strike zone,” Grutsch said.
Which was proven by the box score. Penguin pitching gave up a dozen walks in just three innings while only allowing three hits.
Hartington did manage single runs in the first three innings, but Verdigre answered with five in each of the first two frames.
Kiersten Hans scored in the first inning after walking and stealing her way around the bases including home plate.
The Penguins used three walks and a Nora Lange single to score in the second.
Lammers, Hart and Jocelyn Reyes all walked before Lange’s single past the shortstop chased Jocelyn Reyes home after she opened the inning with her walk.
Ella Kelly scored in the third, stealing home after walking to lead off the inning.
Against Crofton, back-to-back thefts of home by Hadley Grutsch and Lippert allowed the Penguins to walkoff with the one-run victory.
A Reyes walk loaded the bases with two outs when the Penguin duo stole home on two pitches, one of 23 steals for Hartington in the game.
Lange scored twice in the game, Grutsch scored twice; Lippert, Ella Kelly and Brooklyn Peters each scored once.
In the game with Tri County Northeast, Hartington turned a 4-3 deficit heading into bottom of the third into a 13-4 lead coming out of the inning, then Kiersten Hans shut down the TCNE bats in the top of the fourth to put the icing on the Penguins first win of the season.
The four 14’s were joined by Abrie Humphries, Allie Freeman, Brooklyn Peters, Ella Kelly, Hadley Grutsch, Jacey Folkers, Jocelyn Reyes, Kiersten Hans, Landry Heimes, Londynn Morten and Sophie Gubbels to complete the team.
Verdigre defeats Hartington 14U 12-3 H1110XXX-320 V552XXXX-1230 WP: NA LP: Kiersten Hans. 2B: Crofton Player. Hartington 14U Penguins defeat Crofton 7-6 C0222XXX-630 H2113XXX-730 WP: Kiersten Hans LP: NA. 2B: Ella Kelly. Hartington 14U Penguins defeat Tri County Northeast (Emerson) 13-4 TC1030XX-440 H 3 0 10 X X X X - 13 11 0 WP: Kiersten Hans LP: NA 2B: Kiersten Hans, Nora Lange (H). 3B; Tri County Player. HR: Vayda Lippert (H).
