The softball teams from Montezuma and Grinnell are counting on their overall speed to produce for them this season.
Friday night, that worked better for the Tigers than it did for the Bravettes.
Grinnell put up three runs in the first inning and again in the fifth to go up 6-0. All the while, the Tigers used the changing speeds pitching of Ella Grife to limit Montezuma’s number of base runners to just five.
The 6-0 lead was the final score, as Montezuma got some mostly good pitching of its own from junior Kallie Robison.
It was the season opener for Grinnell, while the Bravettes dropped to 1-1 in a game that was moved from Montezuma to Grinnell because of wet grounds.
Grinnell eighth grader Rhiannon Rees hit a solo home run for the Tigers, and the other two runs came in on a base hit in the first inning. Rees was two-for-three in her first high school game, and drove in another run with her other hit.
After the first inning, Robison set down nine Grinnell batters in a row.
But Montezuma wasn’t doing much against Grife. Kalynn Wanders reached twice on bases on ball for the Bravettes, and Robison reached on an error on a grounder that got between an infielder’s legs.
Montezuma’s first solid hit was a sharp single by Jadyn Sharer in the top of the seventh inning.
Two hits and two Bravettes errors produced three Grinnell runs in the fifth. Two of them came in on a bunt. With runners on second and third, Montezuma recorded a ground ball out at first. The runner on third came in, and so did the one from second, who never stopped as she rounded third base.
Grife retired 10 straight Montezuma hitters, starting in the third inning and carrying into the sixth.
The game was played in cool, damp and very windy conditions.
In the Grinnell sixth inning, Montezuma third baseman Tia Shaffer made a nifty catch for a putout on a ball that was blasted toward left field.
Also in the Grinnell sixth, Montezuma outfielders Kalynn Wanders and Laila Kercheval collided chasing a wind-blown fly ball, but Kercheval managed to glove it and hold on for the out.
Grinnell reached Robison for six hits. The Montezuma pitcher struck out two.
UP NEXT – The Bravettes are at Colfax-Mingo on Friday, May 27.