After each team tallied one run in their first at bat, Highland held down IMS and scored seven unanswered runs en route to an 8-1 Southeast Iowa Super Conference softball win Monday night in Kalona. Paige Wieland raced around to score the first run for Highland and in the bottom of the first IMS’ Laura Hochstedler tied it with an RBI base hit that scored Naomi Miller. From there Highland pitcher Mariah Freel took over sitting down the next seven IMS batters in order while her team went to work at the plate. Highland would score three runs in the second and fourth innings aided by four IMS errors in those innings, IMS would commit six total errors on the night. In the post game show Highland Head Coach Carrie Wieland talked about her teams mind set of being aggressive at the plate to put pressure on IMS.

“We wanted to just hit the ball into play, and when we realized they were struggling a little bit with the bunt, we just kept bunting until they stopped us,” Carrie Wieland said. “Putting Paige [Wieland] up for leadoff is the best decision that we’ve done, and Bridget [Murphy] being able to move her or make the play to get her over there, if Paige scores from the beginning it really leads us well for the rest of the game. This is by far the best game we’ve played.”

As Wieland mentioned, Paige Wieland was a spark plug at the top of the line up reaching base four times, and scoring three of them, Courtnee Hahn and Morgan Craig each had an RBI for Highland. Freel surrendered just two hits in the circle for Highland and the lone run in recording the win. Hochstedler took the loss for IMS giving up eight runs just three of them earned, she also led IMS at the plate going two for three with one driven in. IMS now stands at 3-8 on the year, Highland improves to 6-7.