Sometimes, the best laid plans do not work out the way they were intended.
Instead, something completely different happens with even better results. That was the case Thursday night when Seymour came to Columbus East in a Hoosier Hills Conference softball matchup.
With the Owls and Olympians tied at 3-3 in the bottom of the fifth inning, Kaitlin Brummett was directed to sacrifice Keagan Nickerson, who reached after being hit by a pitch, to second with the go-ahead run. Brummett, however, failed to get the bunt down. On the next pitch, Brummett was again supposed to bunt as part of a bunt-and-run play, but again, was unsuccessful.
After two failed bunt attempts, Brummett was allowed to swing away, and swing away she did. She connected on a two-run homer that sailed over the left-center field fence to give the East a 5-3 lead on its way to a 6-5 conference victory.
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“After we didn’t get the sac bunt down, we tried a bunt-and-run. That didn’t work either, but we had their infield drawn in, so I let Kaitlin swing away, and it worked out,” said her father and coach, Rusty Brummett.
That was Kaitlin Brummett’s first-ever home run that sailed out of the park.
“I didn’t even really feel it,” she said. “I didn’t believe it until I looked up rounding first and saw that it had gone over the fence.”
The Olympians (6-5, 1-1) needed every run they could muster. Their defense kept the Owls (4-2, 1-1) in the game, and the outcome was in doubt until the final out.
East committed five errors, giving Seymour several extra outs on which they failed to capitalize. The Owls jumped on Olympians starter Jordan Johnston right out of the gate with a run in the first. It could have been more, but the Owls’ Carlee Robinson lined a bullet to East second baseman Kamryn Cantu, who was able to pick Meyer off of first for an inning ending-double play.
East answered right back in the bottom of the first, when the first three batters reached safely via singles. The third of those singles, hit by Brooke Valles, drove in Claudia Sims to tie the score at 1-1. Following a sacrifice bunt by Johnston to move the runners to second and third with one out, a Jenna Robbins groundout produced the second run of the inning, with Madyson Foster scoring from third on the throw to first.
The teams traded zeroes for the next 2 1/2 innings until the Robbins hit a laser over the left-field fence to tack on a run and give East a 3-1 lead after four innings. Seymour was able to answer right back with two runs in the top of the fifth, however, highlighted by a home run from Kaufman.
Once again, East had an immediate answer for the Owls on Brummett’s home run, which gave the Olympians the lead right back in the bottom of the fifth.
Following a scoreless sixth, the Owls threatened to come back in the final inning, with a lot of help from East. Rusty Brummett brought in Valles to finish the game.,
Seymour scored a pair of unearned runs, making it 6-5. The comeback fell short however, as Valles induced a groundout to short to end the game.
“I thought we hit the ball well from top to bottom tonight,” Rusty Brummett said. We got production from the top, the middle and the bottom of the lineup. Claudia (Sims) led off for the first time tonight, and I liked the results. Madyson Foster is a great No. 2 hitter, and we were able to put the ball in play and move the ball around tonight.
“Defensively, we are still trying to fit the puzzle pieces together to get our best nine out there,” he added. “I like the way we are playing, but we are not playing our best right now, and I don’t want to be playing our best. I want to play our best at the end of the season.”
