Fury plays flurry of softball games

Marshall's Chelsey Anderson allowed only one earned run to Putnam County in a trophy game of the Show-Me Softball Classic, a 3-2 loss. (Chris Allen/Democrat-News) [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

The Marshall Fury softball team has been keeping itself busy, playing nine games within a nine-day span.

Five of these came during the Show-Me Summer Classic, June 20-21 at Columbia. After dropping their first two games, the Fury won two of the next three to finish fifth in the 18-and-under tournament.

The opening game was a heartbreaking 6-5 loss on a seventh-inning comeback by Mid-Missouri Kaos. Back-to-back doubles by Emily Aldredge and Allie Bockstetter in the fourth inning helped Marshall come back from an early 2-0 deficit.

The Fury scored one run during each of the next three frames, with RBI singles from Bockstetter and Alex Sprigg giving them a 5-4 lead heading into the bottom of the seventh. But the Kaos rallied with four hits, Caley Kramer crossing the plate with one out for the game-winning run.

Marshall didn't fare nearly as well on the second Saturday contest, an 11-2 rout at the hands of the Silver Streaks from Hannibal -- which scored six runs in the third and five in the fifth to put the game out of reach.

The Fury responded to that setback with an 8-5 decision Sunday over M-Pulse of Jefferson City, jumping out to a 3-0 lead in the first after Tiffany Wehmeyer led off with a double. Aldredge tripled, Chelsey Anderson doubled and Lauren Russell capped the spree with an RBI single.

Wehmeyer tripled in a run in the second and got another three-bagger to lead off the fifth. Bockstetter hit the team's fourth triple of the game, scoring on a passed ball, and Macy Neff stroked a single to bring in the Fury's final run.

That brought a rematch with the Kaos, this time Marshall getting a 6-1 victory as Wehmeyer tossed a one-hitter -- the lone run unearned.

Anderson knocked in a pair of runs with a triple as the Fury tallied four times in the first. Four walks and a hit batter led to two more runs in the third.

Marshall closed the weekend with a 3-2 loss to the Putnam County Raiders, Anderson allowing only one earned run --two errors playing critical roles in the defeat.

The Fury trailed by a run going into the top of the seventh, but Aldredge singled and came around on Bockstetter's double. However, a one-out boot put what would prove to be the winning run on base, pitcher Kelsey Ray giving herself the victory with a bases-loaded single.

Back in action the following day in the 16-and-under division of the Sedalia Softball League, Marshall was shut out on three hits by Mariah Wiskur -- the standout pitcher from Northwest of Hughesville -- during a 2-0 loss to the Havoc.

Wiskur tripled in the game's first run and scored the second on sister Shadow Wiskur's single, both coming in the sixth after Lauren Russell had held the Havoc scoreless for five stanzas.

The Fury found its stroke in the June 22 nightcap, blowing away the Warrensburg Legends, 16-3 as Tara Bartel drove in four runs with three hits -- the biggest one a bases-loaded double in the third and final inning.

Marshall scored nine runs on eight walks and two hits, the last being Anderson's two-run double, in the second. Bockstetter plated two more during the Fury's seven-run third.

Returning to Sedalia a week later, Marshall fell to the Crest Ridge Cougars, 4-3. Bartel doubled and scored as the Fury took a 2-0 lead in the first, but Crest Ridge tallied three runs in the second -- getting doubles from Erin Welhoff and Bailey Everheart.

An error put Anderson aboard with one out in the fourth. She went to second on KaeLeigh Brown's single and completed the circuit on a pair of wild pitches to tie the game, but when the game went into the sixth inning the international tiebreaker rule -- in which a runner is placed on second base to begin an inning -- was put into effect.

After Bre Wonderly struck out the side to keep Marshall from capitalizing, she won the game with an RBI double.

Once again, though, the Fury wouldn't leave the diamond empty-handed, Russell allowing only two hits and no earned runs during an 8-1 victory over Warsaw.

Stephanie Stark singled, Bockstetter doubled and Anderson knocked in both runs in the bottom of the first inning for Marshall. The rest of the Fury's scoring came in the second, with Bartel delivering a two-run single and Brown driving in the last run with a two-out single.

According to the Sedalia league schedule, that should wrap up the season for Marshall (8-9) in that circuit with a 3-3 mark.