The North Butler softball and baseball teams, following a three day weekend to recharge, will look to return to the win column when they host Northwood-Kensett for a Top of Iowa East doubleheader on Monday.
North Butler softball (7-7), after season-long five-game win streak, lost back to back games to #6 (2A) West Fork and #1 (1A) Clarksville to close out action last week.
Head Coach Austin Guerrero.
“A valuable couple days of rest, I think our girls need that. We’ve played a lot of games in a short amount of days. Our girls are little exhausted. You can kind of tell in later innings of the last few games, we were looking a little tired,” says Guerrero. “We’ll regroup Sunday, have a meeting and talk about what the upcoming schedule looks like. We get a crack at Northwood with a doubleheader at our place on Monday, to get two quality conference wins hopefully and continue to build off our solid record.”
Kamri Groen, in the circle, has pitched next-level with 83 strikeouts and only 12 earned runs allowed in 73.1 innings. Zoey Thompson with a .475 batting average and Charlotte Shook with eight RBIs have provided pop in the lineup.
Northwood-Kensett (1-7) fell to Osage in a doubleheader on Friday. They’ve not won a game since their season opener on May 28. Bailey Thorson leads the Vikings with a .556 batting average.
First pitch for game one is at 6:00 p.m. with game two to follow in Allison.
North Butler baseball (4-8) after a season-long three game win streak, fell 3-2 at Hampton-Dumont-CAL on Thursday.
Head Coach Chase Stohr on the team’s progress and growing confidence.
“Pitching has kind of been the strength of our team so far this year. Where we’ve struggled to start out the year has been putting our defense and our hitting into the same game. It seems like some games were finally hitting really well and now we’re making five, six errors in the game. Then we’re finally fielding the ball, playing clean defense and now we can’t hit,” says Stohr. “Over the last week and a half or so, we’ve really started to kind of piece all three aspects of the game together. That’s obviously helped out a lot. The kids are getting more confident. About half of our varsity team, this is their first season as a varsity player. They’re adjusting to the pitcher speed on the hitting side and just kind of the speed of the game at the varsity level.”
Brody Wangsness has a 1.08 ERA and 56 strikeouts in 26 innings and Bryce Schroeder has a 3.87 ERA and 15 strikeouts in 15.1 innings to lead the rotation. Wrigley Endelman leads the bats with nine RBIs.
Northwood-Kensett (3-10) has lost three straight games, and fell in a doubleheader at Osage on Friday. Bowan Behne leads the Vikings with 16 RBIs.
First pitch for game one is at 5:30 p.m. with game two to follow in Allison.
