BELOIT—Clinton softball head coach Ross Reincke is no scientist, but he is quite familiar with physicist Isaac Newton’s third law of motion that states for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
That’s basically how his Cougars’ squad rolled to an 8-6 victory over rival Beloit Turner in RVC Rock action on Monday evening: every time the Trojans racked up some runs, the Cougars responded with scores of their own.
“When teams put runs on the board, we react and do the same thing,” Reincke said. “We are aggressive at the plate and get good hits. I'm just so proud of them. They work so hard.”
That mentality showed up big after Turner had tied it at six in the fifth inning.
Addison Mueller led off the sixth with a bloop single to right field, Allie Bell drew a walk and Grace Wilson smacked a ground ball past the second baseman and into center to put Clinton back in front 7-6.
“Reincke told me to bunt, but then I had two fouls so I was like ‘Oh, I have to swing now,’” Wilson said. “I just closed my eyes, swung and hoped for the best.”
Miranda Dahel then moved the runners to second and third with her sacrifice bunt before Ella Roehl put down a perfect sac bunt that rolled to the third-base side and allowed Bell to score.
“You talk about Grace, I mean what a hit,” Reincke said. “Then right after her we have two great bunts and we score again. That was the difference.”
The crucial inning came after Maddyn Saunders had entered in relief in the fourth for the Trojans and struck out three while allowing just one single in her first two frames.
“I was the first batter when (Maddyn) came in and I struck out,” Wilson said. “I was like, 'Oh, this is not good.’ But I just had to put that thinking of ‘I'm just going to strike out over and over again’ behind me. I knew that we needed that hit.”
Ashley Theisen then completed her complete-game performance by sending Turner down in order in both of the final two innings.
“Turner is a great hitting team,” Theisen said. “I had to move the ball around a lot. They definitely challenged me up there. Our infield was lock down in the last couple innings. Allie was huge at short — she had a couple of great plays.”
The Cougars improve to 4-6 this season and are 4-4 in RVC Rock play amid a four-game conference winning streak.
Clinton’s field committed one early blemish and then played clean the rest of the way.
“We just have to minimize the errors and we're always in the game,” Theisen said. “If we have errors it's out the window. But when we're tight on defense, we're usually pretty competitive.
Theisen allowed nine hits and six runs (five earned) with just one walk and 10 strikeouts.
“The rise change combo was working really well,” Theisen said. “When they were on everything else, I would either go up or down, and that was working pretty good.”
The Cougars struck right away after Jordi Morrison started the game with a walk and Theisen followed up by blasting a homer to center field.
“First one of the season, so that’s really cool,” Theisen said. “I didn’t expect it, but it felt really good off the bat.”
Turner tied it in the bottom of the frame after Maddy Hoenig singled and then Emma Bue blasted a triple to deep right. She then scored on an errant throw to third base.
Kennedy Crall doubled with one out in the second, moved to third on a passed ball and scored on Genna Brown’s bunt single to third to put Beloit in front 3-2.
Theisen smacked a one-run triple, Karlee Morris hit a one-run single and Mueller then smacked a two-run homer to make it 6-3 in favor of the Cougars in the third.
“I haven't seen the ball hit that hard in a long time,” said Reincke of Mueller's home run.
Turner tied it up in the fifth off RBI singles from Kamryn Clark and Autumn Meris and a double steal that saw Bue swipe home in the fifth.
“We battled,” Trojans’ assistant coach Joe Rose said. “We didn't have any errors. Maddyn came in and pitched nice and Lauryn (Wells) started off well, but we just didn't come up with the hits when we needed the two to come back.”
Freshman Crall and Bue each had two hits for Turner, who outhit the Cougars 9-8.
Frosh starter Wells allowed six earned runs off five hits before freshman teammate Saunders allowed two earned runs on three hits with four strikeouts.
The Trojans dropped their fourth-straight game with the setback and fall to 4-5 overall and 3-4 in conference play. But Rose added that this younger team has a lot more to give going into the second half of the season.
“We knew coming into this year that our pitching was young and we were going to experience some growing pains,” Rose continued. “They've done a good job of looking through it. Both of them have shown incredible poise throughout the process, but it takes a lot of seasoning to be able to deal with adversity. They've still got a lot of potential that they haven't realized yet.”
CLINTON 8, BELOIT TURNER 6
Clint 204 002 0 — 8 8 1
BT 210 030 0 — 6 9 0
Leading hitters: Clint, Morrison 1x3, 2 Runs; Theisen 3x4, 2 Runs, 3 RBI; Mueller 2x3, 2 Runs, 2 RBI; Morris 1x4, 1 Run, 1 RBI; Wilson 1x3, 1 RBI. BT, Schleis 1x3, 1 Run; Hoenig 1x4, 1 Run; Bue 2x4, 2 Runs, 1 RBI; Clark 1x3, 1 Run, 1 RBI; Meris 1x3, 1 RBI; Crall 2x3, 1 Run; Brown 1x3, 1 RBI.
Pitching (ip-h-r-er-bb-so): Clint, Theisen (W) 7.0-9-6-5-1-10. BT, Wells (L) 3.0-5-6-6-1-1, Saunders 4.0-3-2-2-1-4.
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