Chase Shortly batted .750 going 6-8 at the plate as the St. Thomas softball team split Wednesday night’s doubleheader against St. Kates 10-4 and 10-7 at South Field.
This victory gave St. Kate’s (16-8, 4-2 MIAC) its only regular season win on St. Thomas (18-4, 5-1 MIAC) turf in program history.
Shortly said the team’s performance in the first game was not to their standard of play, but the loss encouraged them to come back even stronger.
“It was a little disappointing, but I liked how our team came back the second game and I think that describes our culture as a St. Thomas team,” Shortly said.
In game one, the Tommies rallied early, scoring two runs in both the first and third inning taking a 4-0 lead, but St. Kate’s responded with one run in the fourth and four in the fifth.
Coach John Tschida said his team did a great job scoring four runs off an All-American pitcher.
“We had 10 hits off a preseason All-American so that was good … some were not as hard hit but we battled,” Tschida said. “On the flipside of that, our pitching struggled a little bit. We know as a team that we have to be on all cylinders offensively.”
With a 5-4 lead entering the sixth inning, St. Kate’s kept its bats alive. Jenna George singled to left field scored two runners and back-to-back hit batters loaded the bases with one out. Brittney Frenette and Anna Hinderaker each added one RBI before the Katies were retired.
A four run sixth and 10 uncontested runs secured the 10-4 victory for St. Kate’s as St. Thomas stranded six runners on base.
The Tommies came out firing in the second game putting up nine runs on seven hits in the first inning. St. Kate’s pitcher Maddie Greer faced eight batters in ⅓ innings surrendering seven runs on four hits before reliever Kaylee Berquam took the mound.
Tschida said his team had a good comeback in the second game.
“Like I told my team, we got to come out and just score as many runs as we can all the time and so we did that right away,” Tschida said.
But the Katies didn’t go down without a fight. Back-to-back doubles gave the team momentum in the fourth inning as the Katies answered with four runs on six hits.
“It was just a matter of slugfests and see who finished on top,” Tschida said.
In the doubleheader, Shortly added three more run to her 19 RBI total and improved her batting average to .455.
Shortly said she is motivated by her teammates and coaches but also her siblings who cannot watch her play.
“My sister use to play with me on every team and so I play for her,” Shortly said. “She’s has been my number one fan my entire life, and she’s probably one of my biggest inspirations.”
Shortly also has a brother in the coast guard.
“He lives a really long ways away and he can’t see me play, and so it’s fun to call him up some days and say I had a couple really good games,” Shortly said.
Wednesday night’s matchup was the first of three doubleheaders the Tommies will play in the next five days. St. Thomas is scheduled to play St. Mary’s on Saturday and at Hamline on Sunday.
Coach Tschida said consistency is key.
“Softball is different than a lot of sports. It seems like we play almost everyday or every other day,” Tschida said. “The team that can stay Steady Eddie has a chance to finish it on top.”
Carolyn Meyer can be reached at cameyer@stthomas.edu.