The North Platte Community College softball team lost a pair of games Monday against the Hastings College JVs, 15-0 and 9-1.
“It was a cold day for softball that’s for sure,” said North Platte Coach Janelle Higgins. “Mentally we struggled today, it got colder a lot faster than we were anticipating and didn’t adjust well.”
Early errors led to eight unearned runs in the first inning of Game 1 and North Platte was unable to get back on track.
“We fought and never gave up but we gave them too much too quick and couldn’t recover,” Higgins said.
North Platte goes to 14-26 on the season. The Knights close out the regular season Tuesday, weather permitting, with two games at McCook for the annual Purple Out games for epilepsy awareness.
“At the end of the day this team continues to push and get better — it might not show it in the win-loss columns — but they do and we know they are capable of greatness they just have to believe it,” Higgins said.
On Saturday, North Platte will go to Columbus to begin the Region IX Division II tournament against Central Community College. That is a best-of-three series with the winner advancing to the Region IX championship series the following weekend at Beatrice against Southeast Community College.
GAME 1 – Hastings College JV, 15, North Platte CC 0: The junior Broncos came out and scored eight runs in the top of the first and put the game away in five innings, added two runs in the second inning, one in the fourth and four in the fifth inning.
North Platte was out-hit 10-2 and the Knights committed four errors leading to 10 unearned runs.
Mikayla Gibson (West Valley, Utah) had a third inning double and Maddie Liddle had a fourth-inning single.
Ashylnn Krueger (Littleton, Colo.) started in the pitching circle and went 2.2 innings. She allowed one earned run and five hits, one walk and three strikeouts. Hailey Wilkins (Tyler, Texas) went the final 2.1 innings allowing four earned runs on five hits, four walks and one strikeout.
GAME 2 – Hastings College JV 9, North Platte CC 1: While the Knights kept Hastings College JV off the scoreboard in the first inning of this game, the Broncos scored two in the second and scored in five straight innings.
After Hastings took a 2-0 lead in the second, North Platte got on the scoreboard for the first time on the day in the bottom of the inning. Megan Hernandez-Bellew (Broomfield, Colo.) led off with a bunt single, went to second on a bunt from Maddie Liddle and scored on a Bronco error.
The Hastings JV’s added three runs in the third, one in the fourth, two more in the fifth and a run in the sixth.
Emily Marsden (Papillion) went six innings for the Knights, allowed 12 hits, six earned runs, two walks and she struck out five.
NPCC had five hits in the game – all singles, from Mikayla Gibson, Willow Chitty (North Platte), Marsden, Hernandez-Bellew, and Kayleigh Bucio (Rialto, Calif.).