PREP SOFTBALL: Hostetler shines again to help Raiders beat Angola

Apr. 10—MIDDLEBURY — A week off from softball activities may have cooled down Northridge's bats a bit, but Raiders pitcher Abby Hostetler was in mid-season form.

Northridge's best pitcher played like it on Saturday, throwing seven innings of no-hit baseball and striking out 15 to help her team cost to a 5-0 victory over the Angola Hornets.

"I contribute a lot of what we did here (on Saturday) to Abby Hostetler," Northridge coach Ray Caples said. "I lost track after the 13th strikeout. She pitched the whole game and really dominated from the circle. We didn't bat well, but she stood tall in the circle and really helped us out. ... Her vacation was at home, and I know that she was working. She came out here to our open-field workouts that we had through the time off, and so she didn't miss a beat."

Despite the Raiders having scored 33 runs over their first two games, the Hornets slowed them down effectively in the batter's box behind some solid pitching early.

The Raiders did strike first early though, taking a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first behind an RBI groundout by Jenna Bible that scored Grace Lueking from third. The next at-bat, Chloe Gust flew out to right to bring in Makenna Knepp. Overall, the Raiders scored only two of their five runs on base hits.

"That's the key," said Caples when asked about scoring runs in a multitude of ways. "We know when we face those top-tier teams in the season to come in conference play and stuff like that, we know we're going to have to manufacture runs. So being in a situation like this (on Saturday) where we had to work through those things. Stealing bases, manufacturing runs with sacrifice flies, moving runners on sacrifice bunts, that was good to see us execute that way."

Northridge extended its lead in the bottom of the third because of some small starting with Lueking's sac bunt that allowed Tavia Bratt to advance to second. Two batters later, with Bratt on third and two outs, she'd successfully steal home to make it 3-0. A couple pitches later, after Bible stole second base to get into scoring position, Gust blasted a pitch to the wall in left field to score Bible and pick up her second RBI of the contest.

The Raiders would add their fifth and final run of the game on an RBI single by Knepp, bringing home Jayln Weatherholt.

"Angola came at us with a lot of change-ups and slow pitches, and our girls were just a little off-balance with it," Caples said. "We were swinging ahead and under pitches because we couldn't wait for it, so that resulted in a lot of pop flies and a lot of fly-ball outs. Coming off of break, there was a little bit of rust there, but a win is a win."

Even with only five runs on five hits on Saturday, that was more than enough to support what Hostetler was doing in the circle. Through three games, she has now thrown 16 innings, given up just one hit and one unearned run and surrendered only three walks to complement her 35 strikeouts.

"She threw a lot of fastballs, a lot of rise balls. We just tried to stick with fast, fast, fast," Caples said. "We're still trying to work in some change-ups, but she's just not confident with it yet, but we'll get her there. ... Where we struggled with slowing our bats down, (Angola) struggled with catching up to her speed."

Game 2 of the scheduled doubleheader ended in a 2-2 tie in the top of the third after inclement weather rolled in later in the day.

The Raiders (3-0-1) will return home on Tuesday to face off with a strong Penn team.

Evan Lepak can be reached at evan.lepak@goshennews.com or 574-533-2151, ext. 240326. Follow him on Twitter @EvanMPLepak.