Paislee Norman Starts NEN Varsity Career With First Pitch Homerun on First At Bat

The Northeast Nodaway Bluejays got a leadoff home run from Paislee Norman and took it from there, adding a 24-run second inning to rout Hopkins 28-2 in a game that lasted just three innings. 

The team headed into the summer with a lot of question marks following the graduation of many of the key players who made up their four-year run of winning seasons. But a freshman, Paislee Norman, stepped up and hit a home run on her first varsity pitch in her first at-bat, circling the bases after hitting it to the wall Thursday. Blair Nelson followed with another and then Brianna Meyer followed with a bad-hop double. Hayley Yost was plunked by a pitch and they took second and third on a wild pitch. Mylee Wilmes hit a pop fly that dropped in no-man's land between first and second to score one and then Bristol Hicks struck out, but as Hopkins was throwing her out at first, Mylee Wilmes came home to make it 4-1.

In its first game without four-year battery Hadley DeFreece and Baylie Busby along with several other key cogs, Adie Thummel started pitching and Paislee Norman caught in the first inning. Thummel, following some big footsteps, got the first-game jitters, walking one and hitting two to load the bases, but got a groundout and a pop-up to end the inning with just one run crossing the plate.

Bristol Hicks pitched the second inning with Hayley Yost, who caught for the Bluejays two years ago while Busby was down, catching for her. North Nodaway threatened to get right back in the game after two walks and a hit batter loaded the bases. But after North Nodaway ran itself out of a big inning, with second baseman Blair Nelson tagging out a runner between first and second and then gunning down a runner at the plate, Northeast opened the floodgates and took advantage of a ton of walks, hits, and errors. They scored 21 of their 24 runs in the inning after two were out.

Brianna Meyer and Hayley Yost hit home runs during the avalanche. Brianna Meyer and Rylee Scadden hit doubles, and Brianna Meyer, Mylee Wilmes, and Adie Thummel had singled during the inning. 

Hopkins got a pair of hits from Piper Smith and Rylin Strayer to get a run home in the third, but Bluejay right fielder Emma Vickers showed that she has an arm as she gunned down a runner at the plate to shorten the inning.