By TR HARLAN

It took more than a week. It took four rainouts. But, it finally happened.

The 2008 Chesterton softball team took the field on Tuesday, and after a tough top of the first inning, settled down to pick up an 11-4 Duneland Athletic Conference victory over Michigan City.

“We’ve been rained out four times and it was just time to play,” Chesterton coach LouAnn Hopson said. “The field is going to be a mess and it’ll take a couple of weeks to fix it, but there’s no sense in having a great-looking field that you never play on.

“We got to play and to see where we are.”

Michigan City got a leadoff single from Natalie Studtman and then took advantage of two botched defensive plays on bunts that resulted in a pair of Trojan errors. Both runners scored and the Wolves were staked to an early 2-0 lead.

“It was a little ugly in the beginning,” Hopson said. “The bunt goes down and someone yelled throw it two and we did. I don’t know what we were thinking, but the kids don’t know each other and aren’t used to each other yet.

“We’ve only got two seniors back and everybody else is new. It’s going to be that way for a while.”

The Trojans got things started right away in the bottom of the first with a slap single from Heather Overla. Sam Gross followed that with another single.

“I thought our lefties did a real nice job of putting the ball in play early and getting things going offensively,” Hopson said. “When you come back and score it always calms things down a bit.”

Catie Armstrong followed with a single back up the middle and scored Overla. Amanda Gough’s sacrifice fly plated Gross and tied the score at 2-2.

“We have to count on those kids for power,” Hopson said. “It was nice to see.”

Sam Bozak’s sacrifice bunt was mishandled and scored Armstrong to give the Trojans a lead they would never relinquish.

Justine Vogie reached third, scoring Bozak, and scored herself on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Kathleen Maple for a 5-2 lead.

“I was pleased with the fact that we don’t have a lot of power hitters and we tried to move some things around,” Hopson said. “We missed a couple of signs and we got the sign and blew the play sometimes too. But, no matter how much you practice, it’s not a game, and you are going to show you’re youth.”

Armstrong settled down and retired the Wolves 1-2-3 in the second inning and the Trojans’ bats responded with three more runs.

Gross walked to start the inning and scored on Armstrong’s double to center field. Gough walked and scored as Kelci Garcia doubled hard off the left-center field fence.

Two more runs in the third inning pushed the lead to 10-2 and allowed Hopson to clear the dugout.

“After the third inning we made some changes and they made their share of mistakes,” Hopson said. “We needed to see things for ourselves out there. When the coaches have told you your going to mistake if you don’t change it, then you go out there and make that mistake, sometimes that’s the only way to learn.

“We definitely have some things we need to work on.”

Armstrong was replaced after three innings by Jessica McClellan in the fourth and she retired the first six batters she faced before finally allowing two runs and three hits in the sixth inning.

“Catie (Armstrong) did a nice job,” Hopson said. “When it looked like things were ok, I wanted to get Jess (McClellan) in there and get her nerves taken care of.”

SCORING BY INNINGS

Michigan City 200 002 0 – 4 4 5

Chesterton 532 010 x – 11 6 3

2B – Catie Armstrong, Kelci Garcia (C). Pitching Summary – Michigan City – Lindsey Romero (2 IP, 5 H, 2 K, 3 BB), Sam Gardner (4 IP, 1 H, 2 K, 7 BB); Chesterton – Catie Armstrong (3 IP, 1 H, 4 K, 1 BB), Jessica McClellan (4 IP, 3 H, 4 K, 0 BB). WP – Armstrong (1-0). LP – Romero (0-1). S – McClellan (1).

Junior Varsity

Chesterton 10, Michigan City 6

The Chesterton Junior Varsity team started its season off with a 10-6 win over Michigan City on Tuesday night.

Freshman Krista Bottos pitched a complete game and picked up the win. Bottos also started the game off offensivly with the first run, scoring on a double by Tara Fine.

Posted 4/2/2008