ABERDEEN The Sioux Valley softball team lost its opening game of the Class A State Tournament on Thursday afternoon as the Cossacks fell to Dell Rapids 6-2.
The No. 5 seeded Cossacks struggled to get their offense going until the final inning and were unable to keep the No. 4 seeded Quarriers off of the scoreboard.
I think today we definitely came in on the nervous side, said Sioux Valley head coach Tatum Sonnenburg. They didnt expect how things would go and we couldnt find our groove right away. This is our first time here at State and that definitely had something to do with how we played today.
Dell Rapids scored one run in the first inning. Paige Trewin hit a one-out triple and one batter later Emma Lanpher hit her in with a single to make it 1-0.
The Quarriers extended the lead to 4-0 in the third. Lexi Scherff led off the bottom of the third with a double and then Trewin walked. Scherff advanced to third on an error and Trewin stole second. Each runner then scored on a Katie Kvigne double and she later scored on an error to make it a four-run lead.
The lead grew to 6-0 in the fourth. Addison Vant Hof walked to begin the inning and then back-to-back singles from Kayleigh Gillette and Scherff loaded the bases up. Both Gillette and Vant Hoff then scored on an error.
The Cossacks would score their two runs in the final inning. McKinley Schwab walked with one out and Amelia Jacobson followed with a single. Audrey Murano then hit a two-run double to make it 6-2. However, Abby Axtell then struck out to end the game.
The Jacobson single and Murano double were the only two hits of the game for the Cossacks. Schwab pitched a complete game for Sioux Valley. She gave up six runs, three earned, on six hits with nine strikeouts and three walks.
We saw some good pitching and couldnt track how [the Dell Rapids] pitcher was throwing the rise ball, Sonnenburg said. I think not answering their runs definitely didnt help the situation. They strung together some hits and stayed consistent in their lineup and then a couple of errors falling in there with a couple hits put us in a poor spot. It comes down to who puts up the most runs and our offense definitely wasnt the best, Sonnenburg said.
The Cossacks will take on No. 8 seeded Vermillion in the consolation semifinals on Friday at 10 a.m. Sonnenburg said her team is looking forward to being able to play another game right away after the disappointing start to the tournament.
We dont know much about Vermillion because we havent seen them yet this season. They came out looking good [on Thursday] against West Central and stayed with them late into the game. I think our mindset tomorrow is just going to be to control what we can control with our team and focusing on the things that we know we can do best. Were excited to get a chance to kind of redeem ourselves, Sonnenburg said.
This is the first trip to the state tournament for Sioux Valley and Sonnenburg said she wants to make sure that her team learns from this experience as they still have two more games left in the season.
I think this is such a great learning opportunity. Were such a young team, so all of these new opportunities that were getting are things that weve never experienced before and so, coming out on the [winning] side is going to be a challenge. All of these teams here at State are good contenders and are not going to give it to us easily. Having the mindset to come away with two wins on the consolation side of [the bracket] is a motivator for us. As hard as the loss today was, if we can get these next two wins, that just shows that we have the mentality that its not just one game and youre done. You can always come back from things, Sonnenburg said.
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