By Bruce Karnick

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After a wild season, section placement had the Raiders travel to Park on Tuesday afternoon for the fourth vs fifth seed match up. Sadly, it looks as though Hastings will finish their season on the road unless the top seeded teams all lose in the first round. Those results will be in next weeks edition of the Hastings Journal, so with the seeding information out of the way, how did the final regular season game go against Burnsville?

Hastings jumped out to an early 1-0 lead against the Blaze. Kendal Jenkin’s led off the game with a single, Reanna Reinke tagged one up the middle to move K. Jenkins to third and Lauren Jenkins hit a hard grounder up the middle to drive her sister home.

The third inning began the same way, K. Jenkins led off with a single, Reinke also hit a single advancing K. Jenkins and then L. Jenkins stepped up to the plate.

“I joke with Lauren that Kendal has to hit the homerun first before she can hit a homerun,” laughed Head Coach Jen Thesing during her interview on local radio prior to the Burnsville game. “I’m waiting for the day that Lauren hits it first and that Kendal has to follow suit.”

Thesing didn’t have to wait long, with K. Jenkins at second and Renke at first, L. Jenkins crushed the first pitch she saw over the centerfield fence extending the Raider lead 4-0.

Offensively, the first three plus innings belonged to the top of the Hastings batting order. Leading off the fourth, Mackenzie Tryba, the eighth batter in the lineup started things off for the Raiders with a walk. She advanced to second with some smart base running on a wild pitch and then was brought home by a K. Jenkins single. Hastings had the 5-0 lead and they were not done yet.

The fifth inning, Abigail Trapp walked with one out, Jessica Peine hit a line drive single to left, advancing Trapp to second. Hailey Hoff walked loading the bases, Tryba hit a ground out to the short stop driving Trapp in from third, Olivia Matson walked, loading the bases again and K. Jenkins hit another single to drive in Peine and Hoff giving the Raiders the 8-0 lead.

Burnsville finally scored in the bottom of the fifth to narrow the gap 8-2 they then scored again in the bottom of the sixth to make it 8-4, but that was as close as they were going to get.

Hastings added an insurance run in the top of the seventh. Hoff was hit by pitch then moved to third on a double by Mattson. K. Jenkins earned the RBI with a ground out to short, but the extra damage was already done, and Hastings defeated the Blaze 9-4.

Hastings finished third in the conference with a 9-5 record, 10-6 overall, behind North St. Paul and Tartan.