SHELBYVILLE — Although Columbus East had dropped its first two road softball games of the seasons, the Olympians had played close games against perennially strong opponents on the road and had struggled against weaker opponents at home.
So when East traveled to defending sectional champion Shelbyville on Friday, the Olympians weren’t intimidated. They jumped out to an 8-2 lead and held on for an 8-7 victory.
"For some reason, we like to travel," East coach Rusty Brummett said. "We get off the bus and are ready to go. So I think we’re going to start seeing if Pete Huse, our athletic director, will start scheduling a bus to home games and see if that helps us. If we can capture that intensity at home … because at home, a lot of times, we kind of fumble in the first couple innings, but away games, we come out and we play."
The Olympians (4-8) jumped on the board with a run off Golden Bears ace Erica Henry in the first. Mady Foster was hit by a pitch to lead off the game, and Kaitlin Brummett followed with an infield single. Both runners moved up an an error, and with one out, Brooke Valles lifted a sacrifice fly to score Foster.
Shelbyville (6-5) answered with two runs off Jordan Johnston in the bottom of the first. But East put together five runs on two hits and two Golden Bear errors in the fourth to take the lead for good.
Valles led off the inning with a single and went to second when Katie Taylor reached on an error. Jenna Robbins laid down a sacrifice bunt and reached on an error to load the bases. Becca Carter then reached on an infield single to score the tying run. With one out and the bases still loaded, Julia Sitterding walked to give the Olympians the lead. After Morgan Steineker relpaced Henry in the circle for Shelbyville, Foster grounded out to plate another run, and two more runs scored when Kaitlin Brummett reached on an error.
East added to its lead in the sixth. Carter led off with a walk, Kerigan Greathouse reached on an infield single and Sitterding knocked in Carter with a hit. Sitterding later scored on a sacrifice fly by Johnston.
"We came out ready to play," Rusty Brummett said. "We had really some good, quality at bats all night, I thought. Even the outs we made, most of them were pretty sharply hit. The bottom of our lineup started coming through and doing some stuff."
The Golden Bears then made things things interesting. They scored five runs on four hits and two Olympian errors to cut the lead to 8-7 with still only one out in the sixth. Robbins then moved from first base to the circle and got the second out on a groundout. After an error and a stolen base put runners on second and third, Robbins induced a fly to right to end the inning.
"Jordan pitched really well most of the evening," Brummett said. "We weren’t getting many strikes low in the strike zone, so that hurts us if the make us get them up, and Shelbyville can hit the ball. But Jordan worked through that, and we just kind of felt like we had gotten to the point in the lineup where, ‘Let’s give them a different look,’ and Jenna came in and got us out of the inning."
The Golden Bears threatened again in the seventh, getting a leadoff single and later a two-out single from freshman Karissa Hamilton. When Hamilton took second on the throw to third, Shelbyville had two runners in scoring position with two out. But Robbins got Steineker to pop out to Taylor at second to end the game.
"We knew we were not going to led their leadoff, Hamilton, beat us," Rusty Brummett said. "So we threw change-up on almost every pitch on her and then handed it off to the next batter, and we were fortunate enough to be able to get the out."
Greathouse went 3 for 4 to lead East at the plate. Sitterding had two RBIs.
Johnston allowed 10 hits and four earned runs in 5 1/3 innings in picking up the win. Robbins gave up two hits in 1 2/3 scoreless innings to earn the save.
"I was very stressed," Robbins said. "I just wanted to do it for the girls and us, to take another win because this is another one of our sectional opponents. We’re going to come out thinking we can beat them again."
The Olympians now are 3-0 against sectional opponents with wins against Bloomington North, Columbus North and Shelbyville. The sectional is May 21, 22 and 24 at Bloomington South.
"(Shelbyville is) still the sectional favorite," Rusty Brummett said. "But I like where we are. We talked about several of our goals, one of which is to win sectional, and we do pay attention to the opponents that we play during the season. We are 3-0 against sectional opponents, so that gives us a good feeling, but the bottom line is, you still have to go and play."
