BOURBON - Rain forced the New Prairie Lady Cougars to turn their bus around Monday and go home early. On Tuesday, it was their play that helped them leave Bourbon quicker than expected.
In Northern State Conference softball action, the Cougars (7-9, 7-1 NSC) needed only six innings to knock off the host Triton Lady Trojans (7-10, 2-5 NSC) by a score of 11-1."When you get something like (the postponement), you're a little afraid you're going to come out flat, but we didn't," New Prairie coach Mike Bilinski said.
The Cougars opened up by scoring two runs in the first and second innings, putting Triton in a hole it couldn't dig out of, as the hosts had just five hits in the game.
"We didn't hit the ball very well today," Triton coach Steve McBride said. "We've been hitting the ball better than that. Our pitching has been getting better, but we have to score runs. We did not swing the bat with authority today."
On top of not swinging the bats, the Triton defense also fluttered, committing five errors.
"I think we're doing better," McBride said of the progress of his girls. "We just don't have a lot of room for error."
The Lady Cougars' No. 9 hitter, senior Beth Kaminski, almost outperformed Triton by herself, going 3 for 3 with two doubles, a stolen base, a run and an RBI.
"We stick her down there for a reason," Bilinski said of Kaminski batting in the ninth spot. "We're hoping we get that kind of pick-up out of her, so we can get that top of the lineup started up again."
And Lady Cougars senior pitcher Angie Hancz didn't need much offense, going all six innings only giving up a run when Triton junior Katie Claxon drove in junior Sarah Stichter on a double in the sixth inning.
"She has just been a model of consistency," Bilinski said of his pitcher. "We lost a pitcher this year, due to arm problems, so she's being carrying the load - as far as our conference goes. When she pitches in conference, she throws a lot of strikes and we let our defense play."
That's the same game plan McBride would like to use, but Tuesday, it didn't work too well.
Triton is back in NSC play tonight, driving to Knox for a 5:30 p.m. contest.
