Bluejays Show Improvement, Still Fall to North Harrison

Northeast Nodaway’s softball team showed a lot of improvement over a winless campaign last year, but two bad innings, the first and the fourth, did them in against North Harrison as they fell 10-0 in five innings. The result was an improvement over the 15-run debacle of last year, but the Bluejays still have their work cut out for them if they want to climb out of the Highway 275 cellar.

Northeast got their first hit of the season in the first inning as Jill Boswell’s pop fly dropped in behind shortstop Ruby Heintz for a single in the first. But the Shamrocks opened the floodgates in the bottom of the inning as Jayliegh Robins tripled off the wall in right, fueled by a friendly wind blowing out to right. An avalanche of hits and errors followed. For the Shamrocks, Rainey Fordyce added a double when left fielder Maribeth Lamb tried for a great catch and came up just short, and Camden Castleberry stretched a single into a double. It would have been worse, but Bluejay third baseman Delaney McIntyre snared Kami Gibson’s screamer at third.

Jayliegh Robins led off the second by waiting on a change and hitting it even farther to right for a home run to go with her triple to make it 5-0. But once again, the Bluejays came up with some outstanding defensive plays to stop the bleeding in the second. McIntyre robbed Emma Craig at third of extra bases, Rainey Fordyce hit a screamer that shortstop Jaden Atkins snagged for another out, and Kami Gibson was robbed again as she took Maribeth Lamb to the warning track in left, only for Lamb to bring it in for the third out.

The Bluejays held North Harrison scoreless in the third as Jaden Atkins robbed Camden Castleberry with a great catch. But the floodgates opened in the fourth as three errors led to a snowball inning, with all four Shamrock runs scoring with two outs. Camden Castleberry, who won an MVP award during travel ball this summer, kept the inning alive as she beat out a slow roller for a base hit; she has turned into a speed demon on the base paths along with Robins this year.

Jayliegh Robins hit a shot off second baseman Meredith Adwell’s glove for a base hit with one out in the Shamrock fifth; she came within one hit of the cycle Friday. She had hit for the cycle in the Tri-County game last year. Carly Rinehart hit a screamer off McIntyre’s glove for a base hit, and Emma Craig singled home Robins to end the game on the run rule in the fifth inning.