St. Mary's frustrates Sleepy Eye

By JEN SEAVEY

Journal Sports Editor

SLEEPY EYE -- Twelve strikeouts by St. Mary's Krista Armbruster and eight errors by the Sleepy Eye defense certainly didn't help the Indians in the Knights' 9-2 Tomahawk softball win Friday.

The fourteen hits St. Mary's had didn't help the Indians much either.

Liza Schwartz and Amanda Helget went 2-for-5 with two RBIs, Jonalyn Cook was 2-for-5 with one RBI, Sadie Sabatino was 2-for-4, and Nikki Hertling was 2-for-4 with two RBIs and a double.

"What we've been doing on offense has been helping her [Armbruster] out," St. Mary's coach Wendy Owens said. "It's not on her mind how many strikeouts she has, or that she gets all three putouts in one inning. She just goes out there and plays."

The Indians had six hits in the game, but were unable to make much of them, as Allie Deibele scored once in the fifth inning after an errant throw to first should have ended the inning and again in the seventh inning when Lauren Hoffmann hit a triple to left-center.

In the first inning, Sam Widmer and Courtney Hammerschmidt each singles on either side of Ashley Roiger, who reached on error. But Widmer was thrown out at the plate in a close call and Armbruster had her first two strikeouts.

"They had a very good game and we struggled in every category tonight," Sleepy Eye coach Cory Haala said.

The second inning, Armbruster retired all three batters at the plate.

"I think it was a great big adjustment from the pitcher yesterday," Haala said. "Then you come in here and she throws a lot faster, and it took them a while to get adjusted."

Two of the three strikeouts in the second were on changeups. Two others in the game were struck out on changeups as well.

"My changeups were working for once ... and they went for 'em," Armbruster said. "They haven't been working all year -- I wasn't pitching many because I wasn't confident."

Another thing that was working for the Knights was their bats. The only inning in which they had fewer than two hits was the first inning.

In the second inning, Armbruster and Elese Berdan reached on a base hit and error, then Schwartz hit a single-turned-triple into center field to score two with the help of an error. Armbruster came home on Amanda Helget's single to right.

St. Mary's spread out the rest of their runs, scoring one in each of the third, fourth and fifth, and two in the sixth.

In the seventh, the Knights made it 9-1 when Raina Walter scored on Jonalyn Cook's RBI single. Hammerschmidt rocketed a throw to second to get Cook out and end St. Mary's scoring chances.

"Courtney has thrown out a lot of baserunners this year, and teams have started to not steal against her," Haala said. "She's probably thrown 12 runners out this year."

Sleepy Eye's pitcher, Nicole Krebs, struck out five and walked one in the game.

Sleepy Eye (8-6, 7-5) hosts Minnesota Valley Lutheran in a doubleheader Tuesday. St. Mary's (9-6, 7-4) hosts Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop Monday.