Colfax girls begin season with split against SV

PEPIN — Although the Viking softball team was more than ready to get the season started, some last minute pitching problems forced coach Joe Doucette to be creative in the double header played against Spring Valley April 25 on a dry field in Pepin.

Sophomore Alexis Rudi was expected to take over the duties on the mound this year, but a back strain that occurred a day before the game wouldn not allow her to throw.

Freshman Lakken Meredith, coming off ACL surgery last fall, stepped in, and with the help of 16 hits from her teammates, earned her first high school win as the Vikings slid by the Cardinals 11-7.

Meredith strained a muscle in her bicep, however, and coach Doucette went further into his pitching rotation, starting Mallie Doucette in the second game, who was relieved by freshman Tiernee Knutson. The result was a 14-4 loss.

Game 1 

Colfax took an early 3-0 lead when Doucette brought Karina Wait home on a base hit and Meredith slammed a triple to score Doucette and Emily Tuschl. The Cardinals came back to take a 5-4 lead but seven runs by the Vikings in the fourth inning gave them a big enough cushion to hold on for the win. Meredith, Doucette and Wait all finished with three hits and Meredith threw a nine hitter, striking out five and walking just two batters.

Colfax 3 0 1 7 0 – 11
Spring Valley 0 1 4 2 0 – 7

Game 2

The Cardinals exploded for 10 runs in the first inning as Doucette moved from her shortstop position to the mound. Knutson took over for her in the second inning and although she held Spring Valley to just four runs, it was too big of a deficit for the Vikings to come back from. Meredith came up with two hits in the game and Doucette smacked a homerun to lead the hitting brigade.

“We had a lot of good things happen for the opening games,” Coach Doucette said. “We have a lot of good hitters and had 23 hits total in the two games. But only three were for extra bases and even though we made 3-4 nice plays in the field we had four errors that were all costly.”

Spring Valley 10 0 0 0 4 –14
Colfax 0 0 0 2 2 – 4