By RYAN WALKER
The Bluffton softball team jumped on the scoreboard early to help power through its first conference victory of the season Tuesday at home, defeating Southern Wells 13-5.
The Tigers (6-6-1) are winners of four straight games since the doubleheader sweep over Northfield on Saturday. Head coach Ben Powers made note of the feat, and for the most part, was happy with his team’s performance.
“It feels good to get a conference win always,” he said after the game. “We’ve been playing a lot better softball, obviously — four in a row now, so it feels good. It felt like we let up a couple times there and made some uncharacteristic errors from what we’ve been playing like. All in all, we played well.”
Despite the loss, Raider head coach Jason Riley is happy to see his team compete and swing the bat better than their last two outings, as they were shut out by South Side and Adams Central.
“We’ve been struggling a little bit the last few games, not scoring any runs. Tonight we came out — it’s the county rival — so we got up for the game,” he said. “We came out, struggled at the beginning but then started getting the bat on the ball and started getting some runs. When you put the ball in play, good things happen.”
Bluffton got off to a hot start with a double by Tyrah Show and Kayla Kiefer’s single to take the 2-0 lead.
The Raiders wouldn’t have an answer until the third inning when Kayleigh Jones drove in a run on an RBI single to cut the lead in half, but self-inflicted wounds would allow the Tigers to come right back. Four of the next Tiger runs would come from passed balls and errors.
Bluffton did put itself in a position to score from third with eight stolen bases in the game: Marly Drayer and Konley Ault had two each.
In the fifth inning, the Raiders were down 8-1 but would show signs of life after starting pitcher Kyah Shaw drove in a run on a fielder’s choice, and Jadyn Yencer scored on a passed ball. Jailynn Chase scored later on an error, and Raigen Tarr singled to bring the lead down to 9-5.
Southern Wells continued to fight through what looked like a potential blowout, and it came from hard work in Riley’s second season with the program teaching a different style of hitting. A style that adjusts to pitchers during the game and shares information as the game goes along.
“They just started reading the pitcher a little bit more,” Riley said. “We’ve been really talking about teaching and training what are they throwing, where’s it at, what are we they going 0-2 1-2, and they’re really starting to buy into that more. They’re coming back in (from the plate) talking, saying, ‘hey, this is what we’ve got. This is what we’re doing.’ They’re getting there. They’re getting it.”
The scoring was too little, too late. Bluffton created more separation with four runs in the bottom half of the sixth inning.
Starting pitcher Lily King ended the game with eight strikeouts and just one earned run (out of five), tossing another complete game for Bluffton. Her 2.79 earned run average is third in the Allen County Athletic Conference.
The Tigers also smacked 16 hits across the board as they’ve been hitting their stride in recent games. Kiefer had four of them and drove in three RBIs, and five others had two hits.
The 13 runs were the lowest total over the four-game win streak, and Powers believe his team’s approach at the plate has made all the difference.
“I feel like we’re much more patient and disciplined. We were just chasing bad pitches early, and I just told them when you hit pitcher’s pitches, you won’t be successful like that. We have to lay off the pitches just outside of the zone and be able to force them to have to come in the place we can handle them, and we’ve done a lot better job of that recently.”
Bluffton will try to go over the .500 mark in conference play as they travel to Woodlan at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 27.
Southern Wells will host Daleville at 5 p.m. Wednesday, April 26.
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