GILMAN SOFTBALL - Gilman gets key hit from Olynick to beat Augusta for first win

GILMAN SOFTBALL

Allison Olynick’s two-run fifth-inning triple put Gilman in the lead and that’s where the Pirates stayed as they earned their first softball win of the season 5-4 over Augusta in the back half of their doubleheader Saturday in Poynette.

Olynick’s big hit to the gap in rightcenter scored Kayleigh James and Kenlyn Kroeplin and overturned a 4-3 Augusta lead. The lead held through the sixth inning when the game reached its time limit and the Pirates came home 1-3 after two weekend road trips to start the spring.

Gilman dropped its first game of the day 7-2 to Wild Rose in five innings.

“It was a good day. We had a good trip,” Gilman head coach Brian Phelps said. “I wish we could’ve come out of the gates a little faster against Wild Rose. We learned a bunch, saw we still have a bunch of stuff to work on. We’ll do that and go from there.

Augusta, a team that is expected to have a good season in the Dairyland Conference, led 3-1 through two innings before Gilman tightened things up with single runs in the third and fourth frames.

Scarlett Stuner carried the pitching load for the day. She finished the Augusta game with six strikeouts and allowed seven hits, two walks and two earned runs.

James had one hit out of the leadoff spot, drew two walks and scored three times. Stuner did not have an official atbat but sacrificed James into scoring position three times. Kroeplin was two for three with a run scored, Olynick was one for three with a run scored and Raygen Soper was one for there with a double.

In Gilman’s morning game, Wild Rose hit the Pirates with a three-run third to take a 4-1 lead and two fifth-inning runs put it away for the Wildcats.

James was two for three, Stuner was one for two with a sacrifice and Olynick was one for two with a walk.

“We didn’t come out swinging the bats real well,” Phelps said.

Stuner threw strikes. She did not walk a batter, struck out six and allowed six hits. Four of Wild Rose’s runs were earned.

“We didn’t play our best in the first game,” Phelps said. “It’s my job to have the girls ready and in some contexts, I didn’t. We came out slow out of the gates and made a couple of key mistakes at the wrong times.”

Well below average temperatures forced the cancellation of Monday’s game in Cadott. The Pirates will attempt to host Flambeau in varsity play today, Thursday, and Prairie Farm in JV play Friday. Eau Claire Immanuel Lutheran is in Gilman Monday for a good non-conference test before Eastern Cloverbelt Conference play starts Tuesday with a 5 p.m. home game against Colby-Abbotsford. Gilman is at Thorp April 17.