After a hot two game start of the season where the Raiders scored 25 points in two games while allowing only two runs, the girls dropped two close games to move to 2-2 for the start of the season. On April 8 Hastings traveled to Mahtomedi where they thumped the Zephyrs 15-1. April 10, Two Rivers came to town and the Raider bats cooled off with the Warriors winning 5-2. Rosemount was the final visitor of the week for a rare Saturday game on April 12 and the Irish clung to a 5-4 defeat of the Raiders.

At Mahtomedi, the Raiders jumped out to an early 3-0 lead after two innings. The score remained unchanged until the fifth inning when Hastings added four to go up 7-0. The Raiders inched closer to the 10-run rule win in the sixth inning but only managed to push one run across the plate. Mahtomedi finally found an answer to Haley Strain’s performance on the mound, breaking up the shutout when they scored one. That seemed to wake up the Raider bats because in the top of the seventh inning, Hastings scored seven to take a 15-1 lead and Strain shut them down in the bottom of the inning to lock in the Raiders dominant win.

Of the 25 batters Strain faced, she logged 14 strikeouts. Hastings had 38 batters and only four struck out. Clare Reider and Addie Seleski each had three hits and each had an RBI. Lauren Meyer also had three hits to join Reider and Seleski, but she also logged a double and four RBIs. Leighton Robinson crushed a home run as part of her 2-for-4, four RBI day. Ella Carlson, and Strain each had two hits and an RBI with Carlson adding a stolen base. Rachel Notch also had a two-hit day.

Against Two Rivers, the Raider bats dramatically cooled off after 18 hits against Mahtomedi, the girls only managed nine hits against the Warriors. The bigger issue was the hits were not strung together like the previous two games. Two Rivers scored three in the second to take the early lead and they added two insurance runs before Hastings found their way into the scorebook, scoring one in the sixth and one in the seventh for the game to finish 5-2 in favor of the Warriors.

Strain struck out six of the 30 batters she faced, Two Rivers simply found a way to get hits off Strain. Offensively, Strain led the way for the Raiders with three hits including a double with an RBI. Notch logged the other RBI on a single. Seleski and Sienna McCoy both tallied two hits in the loss.

Rosemount came to town for a Saturday tilt at noon and they took the lead right from the start, scoring two in the first inning. By the time the Raider bats heated up in the fourth inning, Rosemount had built a 5-0 lead. Hastings rallied in the bottom of the fourth inning with the scoring culminating off the bat of Notch. Notch crushed a bases clearing double scoring three of the four runs for the inning, but that is where the rally ended, and the Raiders fell one run short of tying it. The four run fourth was the last offensively successful inning for both teams and Rosemount ended up winning 5-4.

Notch’s bases clearing double was the highlight of the game, Strain, Reider, Robinson and Meyer all scored in the fourth. Strain faced 31 batters striking out five.

April 17, the girls travel to Hill Murray, April 18, they host Eastview with both games scheduled to start at 4:30 p.m. April 22 is the rare game under the lights since most high school fields do not have lights. This one takes place at Kaposia Landing in South St. Paul at 7:00 p.m. against the Packers.