Northfield's Kristi Luce fires a fastball against Harwood in last Saturday's game at the Falls Field. Nprthfield fell to the powerful Lady Highlanders by a 10-1 count. Earlier in the week the Lady Marauders topped Hazen 14-4 to pick up their second win of the season. Photo by Bill Croney, The Northfield News The Northfield High Softball Girls won one game and dropped two last week. Last Tuesday they fell to Thetford 14-5, on Thursday they defeated Hazen by a 14-4 count and on Saturday they were defeated by Div. I Harwood 10-1.

Against Thetford at the Falls Field, the Lady Marauders were once again troubled by allowing the opposition a big inning. The Panthers exploded with an eleven run second inning keyed by five Thetford hits and four Northfield errors, The Lady Marauders were in a hole they couldn’t crawl out of. “We then held them scoreless until the sixth inning but the damage had been done,” said Northfield coach Karen Safford. The high point for Northfield was the hitting of Mehgan McMullen and Kira Furman. The freshmen led the Maroon & White Girls four hits. Mehgan led the way with a double and a triple as she went two for three on the afternoon. Kira added two hits of her own.

At Hazen on Thursday the big inning once again reared it’s head but this time it was the Lady Marauders that burst out. Hazen Jumped out to a 3-0 lead but Northfield stormed back to tie it up in with three runs in the top of the fifth keyed by a beautiful s bunt by Melissa Kelsey.

The Wildcats got the lead back and they went to the final inning with Hazen leading 4-3. Then Northfield took advantage of the Hazen pitcher’s wildness (7 walks) and four Lady Marauder base hits to push nine runs across in the top of the seventh. Kristi Luce, the Northfield pitcher who went the distance, shut down the Wildcat bats in the bottom of the seventh and when the bus rolled south on that afternoon Northfield had a 14-4 win under it’s belt.

On Saturday, at Falls Field, Northfield fell to Div. I Harwood 9-1 and, once again it was an opponent’s big inning that put Northfield in a hole early. Harwood struck for five first inning runs on 4 hits and 2 Lady Marauder errors and the Lady Highlanders never had to look back.

“Harwood had some really big bats and they were very aggressive on the bases. We’ve got to work on that,” said coach Safford. “Our record has slipped to 2-7-1 but there are some bright spots. The whole team is really fighting hard in every game and they are gaining confidence. Our younger girls are stepping up and doing well under pressure,” coach Safford added.