Bulldogs work walks to rally by Clarion-Goldfield

HAMPTON – What Hampton-Dumont’s softball team needed most in the sixth inning of it’s opening game was patience at the plate.

It got it.

The Bulldogs got a much-needed lead-off walk from Macy Scheideman, another from Lexi Sorenson and then the speed of Shelby Tidman helped them pull off an 8-6 rally over Clarion-Goldfield on Tuesday, May 27.

“You could obviously tell that we were all really nervous,” Scheideman said. “The jitters of being down by two and she was a very slow pitcher and we all just wanted to crank the ball; it showed we had to have patience because the hits will come if we wait.

“During the off-season, I’ve been hitting every Sunday since January with my coach and the other coaches who help out. Definitely, I’m a hitter who has to wait a lot, too, because it definitely is a patience-tester in this game.”

After Tidman forced the error that drove in a run to pull the Bulldogs within a run, Cate Meader drove a 1-2 pitch into the left center field gap to drive in a pair that gave H-D the lead for good.

“I was proud of them,” Hampton-Dumont softball coach Kelly Meader said. “Our bats were kind of quiet until then so I was hoping something would come through. It was nice to get a couple of runners on with no outs and then a big double there. But, yeah, I was glad.”

An insurance run was tacked on when Mallory Wohlford forced the Cowgirls into their second error of the inning.

Scheideman, who was 2-for-3 at the plate, but was thrown out trying to turn a single into a double, said her first at-bat was a pitch she didn’t want and my second one was, though she got caught off the bag.

“Girls sometimes forget how big that just getting on base can help a lot,” Scheideman said. “And that got a score, got the rally going and so we took the lead.”

A highlight of H-D’s opener was Madison Mason launching only the second pitch she saw over the fence in center field that gave the Bulldogs a 2-1 lead. Clarion-Goldfield and H-D battled back-and-forth from there until the fateful sixth inning.

The second walk of the sixth prompted a pitching change from Mishie Rider to Jossie Sann, but H-D had no trouble with the switch.

“Their pitcher ran out of steam a little bit,” coach Meader said. “We have a lot to work on. A win’s a win and we scored eight runs, so that is good. We had a lot of mental errors and we’re young, so that’s part of it. We’ll learn.”