REED CITY — Reed City coach Roger Steig was looking forward to seeing how his softball team would fare against nonleague power Cadillac in a doubleheader on Thursday.
Cadillac opened its season with 5-1 and 14-8 wins over Reed City, but Steig still found several reasons to be happy.
“Cadillac’s a really tough club,” he said. “We needed a game like tonight. I saw a lot of good things we did tonight. We need some work on our hitting. That showed up tonight. We need to get our bats going.”
Gabby Hoaglund no-hit the Coyotes in the first game. The lone Reed City run came in the sixth inning, Bailey Brummel reached base on an error and scored on Jocelyn Wirth’s groundout.
Jules Griffin struck out 11 batters while allowing one walk and nine hits. Cadillac scored single runs in the fourth, fifth and seven innings and two in the sixth.
“I pitched pretty solid,” Griffin said. “They chased some balls and that was nice and something I could throw around. I’d say my best pitch was a high and inside fastball. They chase it every time.”
“I was happy with her pitching tonight,” Steig said. “Cadillac is a strong team. In this first game, she did a nice job of shutting them down. We just couldn’t get any offense going.”
The Coyotes had a 7-5 lead in the bottom of the third inning of the second game. Right fielder Devin Willard threw out Cadillac’s Jody VanPelt at the plate with Coyote catcher Kamryn Myers applying the tag to keep Reed City ahead.
But the Viking bats came alive the rest of the game. Hoaglund was the third pitcher and came in the fifth inning to shut down Reed City.
“We have some young players and our senior leadership came through to pull out a couple of wins,” Cadillac coach Dan Dahlquist said. “It’s nice to get out the first time this year with the weather we’ve been having. It’s nice to see what we have and what we have to work on.”
Sidni Rushford had three doubles and an RBI while Ally Yarger added two singles and two RBIS. Kamryn Myers and Bailey Brummel also had hits.
“Defensively, we made mistakes and when you play against a better team they’ll bring them out,” Steig said. “We learned a lot and will come out tonight as a better team. I’m excited. We’re going to be tough.”
Rushford started and went three innings before giving way to Griffin.
“We’re going to be really strong,” Brummel said. “We’re trying to make it all the way. I just have a feeling.”
