After suffering a 3-1 loss in its season opener Saturday at South Dearborn, the Columbus North softball team was hoping for a better result in its first home game.
It was not to be, however, as the Bull Dogs wound up on the losing end of a 3-1 score yet again Wednesday at Southside Elementary School, this time against Silver Creek.
North (0-2) had its chances throughout, going down in order just once in the first six innings, but it left four runners on base and hit into a pair of inning-ending double plays.
“We had a couple of errors early that cost us,” North coach Robyn Coffer said. “The pitcher was working really hard in there to keep us in the game, and then our errors came around to bite us in the butt.”
North pitcher Madisyn Prince was indeed dialed in early, retiring the first eight batters she faced and striking out the side in the second inning.
The Dragons finally got to Prince in the fourth when Olivia Scarbrough led off with a base hit, moved to third on a fielder’s choice and scored on a two-out RBI double by Hannah Money. Hailey Dorman singled in a run after a North error kept the inning alive, and a throwing error on a pickoff attempt allowed Silver Creek to take a 3-0 lead.
“It affects everyone,” Prince said of the errors, “but you just have to let it go and try not to mess up again.”
“We have to minimize those as much as we can,” Coffer added. “If we have one, we can’t let it get to two, three, four. We can’t let it keep building. We’ve got to stop it when it starts so we can stop the bleeding.”
The Bull Dogs put runners on base in each of the first three innings against Silver Creek starter Camryn Teague, but they were unable to push a run across, leaving runners on second and third in the third inning. They finally got on the board in the bottom of the fifth when Paige DeNeve doubled, took third on a groundout and crossed the plate on an infield hit by Katie Prall — but that was all the offense that North could muster.
Prall finished with two of the Bull Dogs’ five hits. Prince struck out seven against just one walk in defeat, scattering six hits.
“I think it’s there, and it’s coming together,” Coffer said of her team’s effort. “It’s just the timing’s a little off right now.
“It’s early. Hopefully we can turn it around; we’ve got a lot of softball to play.”
