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Haughs adds 3 hits, Coleman homers
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
LAKEVILLE — Almost six months to the day after her knee injury, Rochester junior first baseman Maddie Heinzmann finally got to bat in a high school softball game.
One day later, she got her first big hit.
Rochester scored nine runs in the top of the seventh and went on to beat host LaVille 15-11 on May 12.
The Lady Zs had six hits in the first six innings, one of which was a two-run homer from Kylie Coleman, but then had seven hits and received three walks and sent 14 batters to the plate in the seventh.
LaVille center fielder Heaylyn Kwiatkowski robbed Sydney Haughs with a sensational running catch with her back to the infield in the third, but that was the only time LaVille retired Haughs all day.
Haughs had two of her three hits in the seventh, and her first single in the seventh moved Kylie Coleman, who had also singled, to third.
Coleman scored on a wild pitch and moved Haughs to second. Mia Howdeshell and Darah Strasser drew back-to-back walks off LaVille pitcher Quincy Blodgett to load the bases.
That brought up Heinzmann, who had been 0 for 3 on the day. She hit a slow grounder to first base, and the throw home was well late to try and get Haughs.
Heinzmann suffered a torn ACL in a basketball game against Northwestern on Nov. 10. She participated in the first team practice on March 7 but didn’t receive an OK from her doctor that she could play in a game.
She finally played in her first game against Whitko on April 21, but she was just playing first base while being flexed out of the lineup. She finally batted for the first time against Maconaquah one day before the LaVille game.
“The doctor gave me permission to release my own self of doing certain activities, which I would say was the game before Warsaw,” Heinzmann said, referring to the May 4 game against Manchester. “I got the clearance of it’s up to you, but you have to still be safe and know that you’re at high risk of going back early of injuring my knee again or causing complications with everything. So I had to be careful.”
How does your knee feel right now?
“It feels like it never happened,” Heinzmann said.
Heinzmann said she is surprised by how her knee feels.
“I thought that I’d have some complications or something, but no,” Heinzmann said.
Durkes, Rochester’s No. 9 batter, then singled to right to score courtesy runner Lilly Conley and Strasser and make it 10-7.
Emma Sells then bunted down the first baseline. Blodgett pounced on it, but her throw to try and get Sells at first was wild and rolled down the right field line for an error. Heinzmann and Durkes scored to make it 12-7.
Sells moved to third on Kallie Watson’s grounder back to the pitcher. Then state batting leader Emma Howdeshell cranked a triple to deep right-center to score Sells. Kylie Coleman’s sacrifice fly made it 14-7.
A single by Haughs and Mia Howdeshell’s RBI double capped off the inning.
“I would say that it’s hot, and she was throwing her heart out that entire game,” Rochester coach Becky Lee said of Blodgett and the adjustments her team made at the plate. “I mean, just like our pitchers, she finally got tired. We had seen her the entire time, so I think that was our fifth at-bat going up there. Once we see a pitcher five times, we’d like to think that you’re on her a little bit more. But hats off to her because she pitched a heck of a game and threw a lot of pitches.”
LaVille scored four runs in the bottom of the seventh before Mia Howdeshell got Karisma Lewis to ground out to Kylie Coleman at third base to end the game.
Howdeshell started and pitched the first 4 ⅓ innings. Sells relieved and pitched 1 ⅓ innings. Then Mia Howdeshell came back to pitch the final 1 ⅓ innings.
Mia Howdeshell and Sells combined to give up 15 hits and seven walks.
LaVille scored on Caitlyn Goffinet’s RBI double in the second, but Rochester scored four in the third. Kallie Watson, back after a one-game absence due to illness, singled home two runs, and Coleman cranked a long two-run homer to left-center.
Rochester made it 6-1 in the fifth. Emma Howdeshell walked, stole second, advanced to third on a fly ball to left field and scored on a throwing error. Mia Howdeshell later added an RBI double.
Mia Howdeshell struck out Hannah Levy Kelly to start the bottom of the fifth, but she walked Ayva Barger, and LaVille followed with six consecutive hits off Mia Howdeshell and Sells to make it 6-5.
Blodgett and Lewis drew back-to-back walks in the bottom of the sixth to put LaVille back on top 7-6, but Mia Howdeshell, now back in the circle, got Cambree Howe to ground out to third with the bases loaded to end the inning.
Durkes not only had two hits and two RBIs, but she also had two outfield assists, throwing out Kylie Gorka trying to score from second from left field on a single in the first inning and then taking down Jasmine Foster trying to stretch a single into a double from right field in the fifth.
“She did amazing, especially because we did move her from left field to right field,” Lee said. “She’s very adaptable. She doesn’t second-guess. She just looks at me (and gives a) thumbs up and heads to the place I tell her to go. And that’s huge to have confidence in a player like that, to know that she’s going to be fine no matter where you put her. … She did great at the plate tonight and just being patient and finding her pitch and really listening and taking in what we asked her to do.”
Durkes is one of the freshmen on the team who is being shepherded along by the juniors on a senior-less roster.
“I think that we are doing the best we can,” Heinzmann said. |We have a young team. No seniors. So the juniors are definitely picking up the role of being seniors and helping the freshmen, and I think the coaches are doing a really good job at coaching us to this point.”
Rochester 15, LaVille 11
Rochester 004 020 9 – 15 13 2
LaVille 010 042 4 – 11 15 4
WP – Mia Howdeshell (5 ⅔ IP, 8 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 5 BB, 2 K)
LP – Quincy Blodgett (6 ⅔ IP, 13 H, 15 R, 11 ER, 7 BB, 4 K)
2B – Haley Durkes (RHS), Mia Howdeshell 2 (RHS), Karisma Lewis (LV), Caitlyn Goffinet (LV), Heaylyn Kwiatkowski (LV)
3B – Emma Howdeshell (RHS)
HR – Kylie Coleman (RHS)
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