HTC girls fall to Van Buren

WEST POINT — It was going to be a busy week anyway for the Holy Trinity girls softball team.
It’s become a frustrating one as well.
The Crusaders nearly rallied from a four-run deficit in the bottom of the seventh inning before falling to Van Buren County 6-5 on Thursday night.
Holy Trinity (4-6) lost its third game of the week. The Crusaders knew it was going to be a difficult week to begin with — it started with an 11-0 loss to Louisa-Muscatine to Monday and a 4-3 loss in extra innings to Highland on Wednesday. Those two teams are in second and third place, respectively, in the SEI Superconference’s North Division.
Then came this game against the Warriors, the third-place team in the South Division, followed by Friday’s home game against second-place West Burlington-Notre Dame.
Having fallen just short on Wednesday and in this game was disappointing to Holy Trinity coach Loren Menke.
“It’s one of those weeks where you want to compete, try to scratch out a couple of wins,” Menke said. “And so far we haven’t been able to do that.”
The Crusaders certainly gave themselves a chance with a furious seventh inning.
Jenna DiPrima led off with a single, then Sydney Jarvis singled with one out. Emma Snaadt followed with a ground ball to second baseman Ashlynn Huff, whose throw to first was wild, going out of play to allow DiPrima and Jarvis to score and Snaadt to advance to third. Snaadt then scored on Laura Mehmet’s grounder.
That brought Holy Trinity back to the top of the batting order. But Halie Cain’s soft line drive was caught by shortstop Callie Kracht to end the game.
“It’s a little bit (frustrating),” Menke said. “We’re playing good softball. We’ve made a couple of key errors that has hurt us in both games. The girls are playing hard, and you know, we’re going to win some of these games at some point.”
Van Buren’s Ivy Davison hurt the Crusaders with four hits, including two doubles and a home run. Her two-run bloop double in the fifth inning gave the Warriors a 4-2 lead, then she added a two-run homer in the seventh.
Holy Trinity got single runs in the first and third innings. Kayla Box’s sacrifice fly brought in Cain in the first, then Mary Hellige’s third-inning double scored Mehmert.
But Van Buren pitcher Ally Campbell silenced the Crusaders until the seventh, retiring 10 of the 11 hitters she faced in one stretch.
“I think Ally she's a veteran pitcher,” Menke said. “She made some really nice pitches, got a couple key outs on some of our key batters. And it really took until that last time through the lineup for the bottom of the order to kind of time her and really make good contact.”