By Tracey Peters

Copy Editor

The North Tama softball team is well into their 2010 season.

On May 26 the girls traveled to play against GMG. Morgan Halupnick and Sydney Fehr, pitchers for the Redhawks pitched even innings. Halupnick gave GMG seven hits and three walks, Fehr with three walks and four hits and six strike outs. Kelsey Upah, first baseman hit a home run helping keep the score close with two runs batted in. Upah also stopped five GMG players from making it to first base.

Amanda Howard and Alex Oletski both hit second base runs with two runs also batted in. North Tama played hard but lost to GMG 7 to 14.

On May 28 the Redhawks hosted Don Bosco, Gilbertville. Having a tough time against the visitors, North Tama lost their game 0 -11 but not before stopping several runs from coming to home plate. Upah held off six runs at first base, Herink in left field stopped two, Fehr, playing short stop, sent five back to the dug out, Zobel with three and both Howard and Oletski with one.

May 29 the Redhawks played three different games in a tournament against Dunkerton, Denver and North Cedar Stanwood sending all three teams home with losses. Against North Cedar, Stanwood, Morgan Halupnick pitched seven innings only letting eight players hit off of the ball. Halupnick also added one to the score with a homerun. Howard and Upah both had second base run hits Upah with one run batted in. North Tama won 4-3. Another close game was against Denver where the Redhawks won 3-2. The girls played the field hard with Alex Oletski stopping seven Denver players from making it to home plate. Also Upah, Chelsea Dinsdale, Herink, Hoeg and Halupnick added to the 21 outs against Denver. The Redhawks totaled 29 hits, three runs, 13 hits to give them the win.

The game against Dunkerton brought Emma Knoop to the mound to pitch five innings of the game with only five players being able to get a hit off of her pitches. The Redhawks played the field well and the girls didn’t need any home runs in this game to shut out Dunkerton 7-0. Erin Herink brought the Redhawks two of the runs with one of her hits taking her to third base.

On May 31 the girls hosted Montezuma and Colo-Nesco, again sending them both home with losses. With 21 hits, 12 runs the Redhawks beat Colo-Nesco 12-4. Fehr and Zobel both having doubles and Howard with three runs batted in. The rest of the team helped add to the score and helped with good fielding. Against Montezuma, there was no problem holding them back from scoring with a total of 12 runs for North Tama and 0 for Montezuma. Total hits for the game were 14, 10 RBI’s, 2 second base hits and one triple. In the field, Upah stopped five players at first base, Dinsdale with one at second base and one also for Oletski in center field.

Monday night the North Tama Redhawk Softball team finished up their first half of the conference season with a 3-0 win over Tripoli. After that game the Redhawks are 5-3 in conference and 11-6 overall. North Tama started off the season with a 12-0 win over Meskwaki in three innings. They dropped the next 2 games to GMG and Don Bosco, both conference foes. Then North Tama went on a 7 game win streak which included them going 3-0 in the Jesup Tournament and 2-0 in the North Tama Memorial Day Tournament. On June 5, North Tama suffered 3 late inning losses by a total of 3 runs that brought their record to 8-5. After another set back to Janesville on June 7th (6-4 score) they have since rattled off 3 wins against Dunkerton, Clarksville, and Tripoli to wrap up the first half of the conference season. This years team is made up of 5 Seniors, 3 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 7 Freshman, and a handful of 8th graders. Some statistical highlights from the season so far are: Amanda Howard batting .511 with 6 doubles, 1 triple, 1 HR, and 14 RBI. Alex Oletski batting .500 with 4 doubles and 9 RBI, Erin Herink batting .420 with 14 runs scored and 10 RBI. Sydney Fehr batting .419 with 9 doubles, 1 HR and 9 RBI to go along with a 3-1 record with 2 saves as a pitcher. Morgan Halupnick batting .411 with 14 runs scored 9 RBI and 1 HR as well as being 7-4 as a pitcher. Amanda Hoeg batting .408 with 14 runs scored and 8 RBI. Allison Zobel batting .375. Chelsea Dinsdale batting .300. And Kelsey Upah batting .268 with 3 HRs on the season. Emma Knoop is also 1-1 as a pitcher on Varsity this season. On defense this season the Redhawks have been pretty sound only having 15 errors on 444 chances giving them a .966 fielding percentage. The Redhawks have also scored 100 runs so far and have only given up 51. This has been a really solid season so far for the Redhawk Softball team. The Team and Coaches would like to thank all the parents and fans for their support so far this season and they hope to see more of you out there for the 2nd half of the season. The Redhawks are on the road on Wednesday @ Meskwaki and Thursday @ Colo-Nesco. They return home to play GMG on Friday at 5:00 to kick off the second half of the conference season.