Eagles lose second-straight to Cadets

South Putnam senior Jenna Jones hurls a throw across the infield after pulling in a ground ball against Cascade on Tuesday. (Banner Graphic/TRENT SCOTT)

CLAYTON -- To say that the events at Cascade High School were significant to the state softball picture would be an understatement.

Class 2A No. 2 South Putnam was handed its third loss of the season by the No. 12 Cadets, who won 3-2.

To put that into perspective, the current SPHS senior squad had lost three total games coming into this season and had yet to suffer back-to-back defeats in their career.

The loss has a greater significance in the West Central Conference race, with Cascade now 2-0 in conference play and past its main rival.

Two walks in the bottom of the first set up Brenna Sallee for a single that plated the first run of the game.

Shelby Collier doubled the advantage an inning later with a single that drove in a run and gave Cascade a 2-0 lead.

South Putnam tied the game in the top of the fourth. Junior Kenzie Trisler singled and was driven in by a Mattie Varvel double.

Sophomore Ashlee Gibson scored Varvel with a single to tie the game at 2-2.

The Cadets forced in the winning run in the fifth with three singles, with Morgan Burch applying the hit that pushed the hosts over the top in the game.

Kellie Mink did not let the lead slip away a second time on a day where the junior pitcher recorded 10 strikeouts to only a solitary walk.

The Eagles could not find the hits needed to plate a run in the sixth with two on and fell quickly in the seventh to drop to 5-3 on the season.

South Putnam head coach Chris Jones said that the games against Cascade were both tough, gritty games.

"Monday night we made multiple mistakes," Jones said. "They really took advantage of those mistakes and though we had chances to score runs, we didn't get players across in different situations.

"Tonight was a better game. I liked that our girls fought until the end. Cascade made just a few more plays than us. Coach (Don) Helmick has a good team over there.

"As a whole, these girls haven't experienced much losing," Jones added. "But this is a new team. We're learning about ourselves and we've learned a lot from these two losses. We'll continue to get better and see what we're made of when we come back here in May."

Jones continued on the learning theme and said that the squad is still working on finding its current identity.

"Some of the girls have been in these situations but the current team has not," Jones said. "There's a learning period for being mentally strong and taking advantage of situations when they're presented. If they make a mistake, or we make a play, we need to take advantage of that and get some timely hitting to go with it.

"With this group, they're learning all that. The girls are in different positions than before," Jones added. "We're all learning together. We're getting games to learn about ourselves right now.

"It's better to have these kinds of games than some of the blowouts we've already had. We've learned more in these two games than we had in the rest of the games so far."

On Monday the Eagles lost at home, 4-3. Gibson three a complete game, fanning six. Trisler was 3-for-3 with two RBIs, freshman Katie Hewitt drove in one run and Varvel had a double.

The Eagles will get a chance to break the losing streak on Thursday when the team hosts Edgewood at 5 p.m.

At Cascade
South Putnam.......000 200 0 -- 2 7 1
Cascade................110 010 X -- 3 6 0