For Poynette freshman pitcher Mattie Bredeson it must have felt like the planets were aligned today. In her first-ever high school trip into the circle, she tossed a 12-strikeout, no-hitter at New Lisbon at the Portage Invitational.
Bredeson used a combination of slants and darts to keep the Rockets off balance and when she needed a big play from her teammates they came up with them.
The Pumas scored five in the top of the first and Bredeson took control from there. She fanned the first two varsity batters she ever faced and fanned th e side in the second. She walked the leadoff batter in the third who wound up scoring on a missed play in the outfield then settled in. She fanned two in the fourth, two in the fifth and two in the sevent en route to the win.
“Mattie is a tough competitor,” said Pumas’ Head Coach Bob Tomlinson. We had two other varsity pitchers at another school function today so we sent Mattie out there to show what she can do. I’ve known what she can do for quite some time but she demonstrated a knack today that was pretty impressive.”
Jordyn Mackey scored four times and had a 3x5 game in the leadoff spot. Junior Riley Barnharst was 2x4 with a double into a 20 mph stiff wind. “That one would have been out of any regulation high school fastpitch field,” said the coach. “Portage’s JV field is still set up for men’s fastpitch at 250’ so asking a kid to hit one over that agains that wind today would not be fair.”
Barnharst finished the game with four rbi while senior catcher Emily Cibulka had 3 rbi and went 2x5. Danie Treinen went 2x5 and hit a couple of balls high and deep into the wind that the outfielders were able to camp under.
In the second game of the day the Pumas sent all state pitcher Jordan Blochwitz to the circle to take on a Wisconsin Valley’s leading Merrill Blue Jays. Blochwitz pitched superbly but in the end the Pumas were bitten by one inning of shoddy defensive play, allowing three unearned runs and an international tiebreaker rule where they failed to score in the top of the eighth while Merrill got the game-winner in the bottom half of the inning.
“I hate modified fastpitch softball but I understand it’s need in some events where multiple games have to played in a certain period of time,” said the coach. “We got a nice bunt down to get our runner at two over to third base. She appeared to be there safely but the umpire said she was out.” The inning ended when the batter who bunted was doubled off on a blooper into short leftcenter was caught and the throw beat her to the bag by a long ways.
Merrill placed their last batter of the seventh inning at second and chose to swing away rather than bunt. The leadoff batter, Ives laced the first pitch just inside the leftfield foul line scoring the game winner.
Blochwitz was snake bitten in the Merrill third when a leadoff single was followed by a comebacker that she failed to turn. That stuck runners at one and two when a sacrifice bunt moved the runner to two and three. The next ball was hit sharply to second but the Pumas’ fielder got a bit confused and allowed the run to score but got the batter-runner out. A subsequent throw to third to retire the runner going from second to third was in the dirt in front of the bag and got through the legs of the third sacker allowing the second run to score. The next batter hit a sharp grounder to short that was also booted and ssteal of second followed by a single plated run number three.
With the score 3-1 things look bleak for the Pumas until the sixth when some nifty hitting by Dani Riley Barnharst and Emily Cibulka produced the second and third runs, tying the game.
The Pumas collected six hits while Blochwitz, looking the best she has looked this season, allowed just three hits and fanned two.
The Pumas play at Marshall on Monday, host Columbus on Tuesday, travel to Lake Mills on Thursday before playing in Arlington at 7:15 on Friday night as part of the 29th Annual Poynette Fastpitch Jamboree. They then will play three games on Saturday.
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