The Bluejay girls pushed their Valley record to 3-0 within a week after a rousing 9-1 triumph over Wausau West on Thursday. That backed up a 13-2 triumph over Wausau East on Tuesday and a 3-0 shut-out of D.C. Everest on Monday.
The Jays blew open a 2-0 game with three runs in the third and four in the fourth.
Heckendorf (6 H, 0 W, 8 K in 7 I) cruised to the win.
Maddix Bonnell pounded out a double and a triple in 3-for-4 hitting, driving in 3 runs, and Chelsey LaMonica (2-3, 2B) hit well. Leonna Ives, Emily Travis and Cassandra Casper all doubled.
Pounding the Lumberjacks
Merrill knocked out 17 hits on East pitching, ending the game after five innings with help from a 6-run third and 5-run fourth.
Heckendorf balanced five hits with 6 strikeouts. Only one run was earned.
The Jays lit up the basepath, aided by Emily Travis (4-4, 2B), Leonna Ives (4-5, 2B), Bushor (2-3, 3B), Mariah Turenne (2-4), Bonnell (1-4, 3B, 2 RBI), Heckendorf (1-3, 2B) and LaMonica (1-4, 2B).
Merrill is 4-1 overall, ahead of D.C.E. (2-1) and West (0-5) and East (1-3) in the WVC.
Climbing Everest
Monday’s win over the Evergreens was exciting to the finish.
“It was a very nice win for us, and the girls played well and earned it,” MHS coach Matt Ellenbecker said. “We need to continue to build on this. Any time you can beat DC Everest, a very quality program, it is a nice win.
“Pitching and defense carried us until our bats busted through in the sixth. We had a couple of hiccups defensively in the 5th inning, but timely pitching by Makayla (Heckendorf) and some players stepping up defensively got us out of it. They had opportunities early to drive runs in, but we wouldn’t fold. Both teams had opportunities with runners in scoring position throughout the game and tonight we were good enough to capitalize one time and keep them from doing the same.”
Back-to-back one-out singles and a double steal by Starr Krenzke and Chelsey LaMonica set the stage for Maddix Bonnell’s two-out, two-run triple to right field and she continued home on a throwing error.”
The defense came up big in the seventh to close it out.
“Makayla struck out their #3 hitter after a couple of long foul balls, Molly Schultz made a nice play from behind the plate on a weak pop-up up the third-base line, and Calle (Johnson) squeezed a high fly ball to left to seal it,” Ellenbecker said.
Heckendorf (4 H, 5 W, 6 K, in 7 I) won. Bonnell (2-3, 3B, 2 RBI), Krenzke (1-3), LaMonica (1-3) and Brooke Bushor (1-3) offered the hits. Merrill is 2-1, while D.C. E. is 2-2 and 1-1.