Columbus East’s Kenzie Foster, right, beats a tag by Edinburgh shortstop Alix Streeval for a steal of third base during a softball game at the Steve Hollenbeck Athletic Complex in Edinburgh, Ind., Tuesday, March 29, 2022.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
EDINBURGH — Going into this softball season, Columbus East coach Rusty Brummett said his team would be aggressive on the basepaths and look to beat opponents with speed.
That’s what the Olympians did in Tuesday’s season opener at Edinburgh. East also threw in a little pitching from Kaylee Smith and errorless defense behind her to post a 16-4, five-inning victory.
“That’s what our plan has been this year,” East junior shortstop Kenzie Foster said. “We want to pressure the opposing team as much as possible, and I think when we do that, it’s going to throw a lot of teams off balance, and that’s how we’re going to score a lot of our runs. I think we surprised them a lot. Everybody put the ball in play. We came out really strong and scored a lot of runs, which is awesome.”
Foster got the Olympians started right from the beginning against Lancers ace MacKenzie Bieker. The Syracuse recruit walked and stole second and third. After Mackenzie Sigman beat out a ground ball to third and went all the way to second when the Lancers were occupied with keeping Foster at third, both runners scored when Addy Ross lifted a fly ball to left that fell for a two-base error.
The Olympians broke the game open with four runs in the second and four more in the third to take a 10-0 lead. Foster had an RBI-single, and Bowling Green-recruit Kaylee Cole smacked an RBI-triple in the second. Megan Kennedy’s RBI-double and Cole’s RBI-infield single highlighted the third.
East made it 12-0 in the fourth when Gracie Crawhorn came on and hit two batters and walked one to load the bases. Joycee Redman had an RBI-groundout, and Sigman lined an RBI-single.
“We don’t have a bunch of power hitters, so we’re going to put the ball in play, make the defense work and then get the extra bases as we can with our speed,” East coach Rusty Brummett said. “We spend a lot of time working on aggressive baserunning and being smart when a play in front of you happens.”
Edinburgh got on the board in the bottom of the fourth on a leadoff double by Bieker and a one-out single by Angel Carman. But East answered with four in the fifth on a three-run homer by Kennedy and and RBI-single by Foster.
“I was just honestly looking for a double,” said Kennedy, who went 2 for 3 with four RBIs. “We had a good offseason, and we came out strong and had great attitudes and we played great,” Kennedy said. “It was very chilly, but we stayed loose.”
The Lancers made things closer with three in the bottom of the fifth on a solo homer by Crawhorn and a two-run shot by Carly Cowan, but the Olympians were able to finish off the victory in five innings.
“I really feel pretty good about the way we started,” Brummett said. “We put up 16 runs, but we still have things we need to work on and get better at, and we’ll do that in practice. We have a lot of positives, but we have to keep working. We have to keep getting better every day. We measure ourselves against ourselves. We don’t measure ourselves against our opponent. Every day, we have to be better.”
Foster finished 2 for 2 with two RBIs, Cole went 2 for 4 with two RBIs and Sigman was 2 for 4 for East. Smith threw a nine-hitter.
“I thought Kaylee did a nice job pitching, hitting her spots most of the time,” Brummett said. “The middle of their lineup, 1-through-4, 1-through-5, they’re pretty solid. They have some hitters. They have some young players that are going to get a lot better. I always tell the girls it’s never as good as it seems or as bad as it seems. “
Bieker went 3 for 3 for Edinburgh. Cowan went 2 for 3 with two RBIs, and Crawhorn was 2 for 3.
“I think our veterans that have been here, we’re going to have to get production out of them, and they understand that,” Edinburgh coach Ben Taylor said. “For the first game, we really kind of showed the things that we need to learn and the things that we need to work on, which is kind of what we were looking for out of this. “
The Lancers were plagued by six errors.
“I think it’s just the growth that we need as a team,” Taylor said. “For some of them, this was their first actual game. So there’s development on our side that we’re working through. We made some uncharacteristic plays in the beginning there, but it’s stuff we’ll clean up as we go through the season.”
East visits Bloomington North on Thursday and Bloomington South on Saturday. Edinburgh has two more Class 4A opponents in Whiteland and Franklin coming to town on Thursday and Monday.
“We know the first part of our schedule is brutal,” Taylor said. “We start off with three 4As. We knew it was going to be tough, but it’s good experience for the girls. It’s going to teach them things, so that’s what we’re looking to get out of the beginning of the season.”
