The Washington Demon softball team exploded with offense last night, getting the first round regional win over Ft. Madison to move on to Saturday.

Just two days after scoring one run against the Bloodhounds, the Demons tripled the offensive production in the first inning. Washington wasted no time with two hits and a runner reaching on an error in three pitches and a run scored to go up 1-0 before the fans had sat down. Washington didn’t stop there, as Stephanie Fishback reached on a single and before Jaycee Pumphrey threw the 15th pitch of the game, Kayla Andrew drove a two RBI double to the fence to make the score 3-0 Washington after one. Ashley Rausch made her presence known in the circle, sitting down the Bloodhounds in order in the first and second innings.

In the third inning, Ft. Madison made a strike with a two run shot from Kayla Culbertson to make the score 3-2, but Washington wasn’t done. In the top of the fourth, the Demons batted one short of the order, scoring four runs on two hits and an error, including the two RBI double by Stephanie Fishback to make it 7-3 Demons, and chased Pumphrey from the game to take on Chase Lowney. Washington added three more runs with two in the fifth and one in the sixth, including another two RBI double, this one by Chayse Jaspering to make the score 10-2.

Ft, Madison struck in the sixth with a string of singles, loading the bases and threating the most they had all game. They got three runs around to make it 10-5, but that is as close they got.

Demon head coach Angie Shrader talked after the game about the difference between Tuesday and last night.

“We came ready to play tonight, and that was the big difference, and I think a lot of it was first pitch, first batter, Chayse Jaspering started it off, and we did work on timing a little bit the last practice and we worked on our hitting which helped, and again, we’ve talked about it all season long, the girls have been waiting for this moment in time to play their best softball and we’ve been talking about that all along and they came ready to play tonight and they showed it.”

Washington was led at the plate by Chayse Jaspering who went 2-5 with two RBI’s and a run, Grace Redlinger who went 2-4 with two runs and an RBI and Kayla Andrew who went 2-4 with three RBI’s. Rausch in the circle went all seven, allowed five runs, four earned, walked two and struck out nine.

The Demons move on to face Assumption tomorrow in Davenport.