Pirates’ offense pounding the softball during 3-2 start to year

GILMAN SOFTBALL

A five-game first week of action showed the Gilman Pirates have a potent offensive lineup from top to bottom. Some glitches still showed up defensively Saturday as the Pirates ended the week at 3-2 following losses to Manawa and Stanley-Boyd at Poynette.

Gilman was finally able to get this trip in for the first time since 2019 as the seven teams involved were able to dodge the weekend’s big weather change and get their two games apiece in.

The Pirates fell 11-7 to Manawa and a late rally came up short in a 9-6 loss to Stanley-Boyd. The trip actually started Friday with an 11-1 win at Colby-Abbotsford that started Eastern Cloverbelt Conference play.

“I’m proud of the girls and how they played,” Gilman head coach Brian Phelps said. “It was a fun trip.”

In Saturday’s opener against Manawa, The Pirates fell behind 6-1 two innings in and trailed 11-3 through five and couldn’t dig out of that hole to suffer their first loss of 2023.

The offense was good. Kayleigh James started a good day for herself at the plate by going two for four, Tatum Weir was two for five, Jayda Rosemeyer was two for two with two walks, Kenlyn Kroeplin was two for three with a walk and Bryn Hendricks drove a two-run homer out of the park in the third inning. The Pirates scored two runs in each of the last two innings to make a game of it.

The toughest part of the opener was a leg injury suffered by catcher and leadoff hitter Danielle Mann while sliding into second base. With Kroeplin, the planned backup catcher already nursing a wrist injury, the Pirates had to go to option three for catching, which meant moving shortstop Ava Warner behind the plate and having freshman Allie Olynick fill in at short.

“Ava did a really nice job. She was solid back there,” Phelps said of Warner, who does have a good amount of catching experience. “She still called out our defenses for us. Allie did a nice job as well.”

No matter who was playing where, Phelps said the Pirates made some mistakes that shouldn’t have been made and those led to the Wolves’ three-run innings in the first, second and fourth frames.

“We committed key errors at costly times and we just can’t do that,” he said.

Weir pitched for Gilman and allowed eight hits and two walks while striking out six.

“Overall Manawa has a nice team,” Phelps said. “They had two pretty quick pitchers. If we would’ve made a couple of plays, it would’ve been a really close game. But it was good to play a nice team like that. They’re well-coached and were fun to play.”

With three-run rallies in the first and fourth innings, Stanley-Boyd jumped out to an 8-2 lead in the second game and held on for the 9-6 win. The Pirates made things interesting with a run in the sixth and three in the seventh but, again, couldn’t quite make up the deficit.

Eva Kopacz got the pitching assignment and allowed six hits and six walks while striking out four. Four of Stanley-Boyd’s runs were earned.

“Again, they bunched things up and we let some balls drop that we shouldn’t have,” Phelps said. “We have some things to clean up yet and hopefully we can improve that each time we get out.”

The offense again put the ball in play, but Phelps said the batters did have a tough time adjusting to slower pitching than they saw in game one. James was two for four again with two runs scored as was Kroeplin, who filled the leadoff spot. Warner went two for four as well. Weir and Chaplinski both went three for four. Chaplinski hit a triple and continued her hot start to the season at the plate.

Sunday night’s snowstorm put Gilman in another uncertain stretch when it comes to the schedule. Tuesday’s conference game at Owen-Withee was moved to May 5 and a home game today, Thursday, with Colby-Abbotsford has been postponed. A non-conference game at Colfax Friday was still on as of mid-week. Next week the Pirates are scheduled to host Spencer in a league doubleheader Tuesday and Loyal-Greenwood on April 27. Both of those teams are off to slow starts to the season.

The down side Friday was the Pirates let six called third strikes go by and didn’t get down the bunts they wanted to in some situations. The good news was they still put 11 runs on the board, capped by a five-run sixth, and got an 11-strikeout, no-walk effort from Weir in an 11-1 win at Colby-Abbotsford to start Eastern Cloverbelt Conference play. Chaplinski went three for four with two doubles and Mann went two for three with two RBIs at the top of the order to spark Gilman’s offense, which ended up with 10 hits, four of which came in the big sixth inning that finally put the Hornets away in their first game of the season and four more came in the second when Gilman scored twice and took the lead for good.

Weir cruised through the second through fifth innings and worked out of trouble in the first and last frames. Kylie Orth got an RBI two-out single in the first to tie the game. In the sixth, the hosts had runners on second and third with no outs as they tried to extend the game to the seventh inning, but Weir got two big strikeouts and then Chaplinski, playing third base, cleanly fielded a bunt from Harrison Schmitt and threw her out to end it.

Mann led off the game with a walk, stole second, moved to third on Weir’s groundout and scored on a two-out wild pitch to get the scoring in the top of the first inning. Chaplinski singled off Colby-Abbotsford pitcher Tatum Bargender to start the second and Rosemeyer hit an infield single. With two down, Kenlyn Kroeplin got a clutch base hit to score Chaplinski and Mann’s infield hit drove in Rosemeyer to make it 3-1.

The Pirates took advantage of an opportunity in the third to extend the lead to 5-1. Chaplinski blooped a one-out double to right and Rosemeyer reached on a dropped throw at first base on what could have been an inning-ending groundout. Both runners scored when Kopacz singled and the ball got by the leftfielder.

Chaplinski reached on an error and eventually scored on Warner’s groundout to make it 6-1 in the fifth.

Kroeplin, who went two for four out of the ninth spot in the order, started the big sixth with a single and stole second. She scored on Mann’s base hit. James walked. An error on a ball hit by Weir scored Mann. Hendricks drove in a run with a groundout, Chaplinski doubled in Olynick, the courtesy runner, and Warner’s infield single scored Chaplinski with the final run.

Gilman 13, Prairie Farm 1

The Pirates got their first home game of 2023 in on Thursday and had no trouble with Prairie Farm, winning the nonconference game 13-1. The Pirates scored four times in the first inning and then blew the game wide open with an eight-run second. One more in the third made it 13-0 before the Panthers got an unearned run in the fourth.

Six Pirates had multi-hit games. Mann was two for three with a double, reached on an error and drove in three runs. Chaplinski was two for three with a double and three RBIs. Kopacz was two for three with two RBIs. Kroeplin was two for two with a walk and two runs scored. James was two for four and Weir was two for three.

Weir struck out four and walked four in two scoreless, hitless innings. Kopacz covered the last three innings. She struck out five, walked three and allowed one hit.

Gilman’s Danielle Mann slides safely into home plate with the team’s first run of Friday’s game. She scored on a wild pitch by Colby-Abbotsford’s Tatum Bargender.