West Bend, WI — Link to original article from the West Bend Daily News: https://westbenddailynews-wi.newsmemory.com/?publink=329d0bc91_134ab3e&fbclid=IwAR2TVL1FOUBt-aXDHu_-kqc1ZdRqltx92VPSxQPbYPXBKC9zLuDYHNQaPbg PREP SOFTBALL West Bend West 13, Grafton 0 (5 innings) By Scott Peterson Daily News Correspondent WEST BEND — This spring weather has seen some unusually cold temperatures for softball games, so it was no surprise when runs piled up like snow for host West Bend West. The Spartans stormed ahead with 10 runs in the first inning alone on Tuesday and cruised to a 13-0 North Shore Conference victory over the visiting Grafton Black Hawks. The West offense was able to capitalize on five walks and a few errors during the first frame to get runners on base and jump out to a 3-0 lead. When the hits came, those runners also came in to score. Sophomore Maiya Tearney, hitting in the seventh spot, gave West its first hit. Her single drove in two runs and extended the Spartan lead to 5-0. Senior Eleanor Henschel then followed with a two-run home run to go up 7-0. A total of 15 batters came to the plate to push the early lead to 10. West Bend West head coach Ken Dischler credited his team with a patient approach at the plate. “We just got it rolling,” Dischler said of his offense. “I don’t think we got a hit until the seventh or eighth batter. A couple walks. Nice plate discipline. We just kind of kept moving the stations and got through the order and kept it rolling.” West’s starting pitcher, junior Lindsay Sandleback, gave up only one hit over four innings and credited her team’s early offense with the confidence she needed on the mound. “It’s nice knowing you have a security blanket so I feel like I’m not stressed at all,” Sandleback said of the early lead. “Even if your seven, eight, nine is up we know we can still get on base. It’s just a good feeling.” Grafton head coach Mike Bergmann knew his team couldn’t afford to help West’s potent offense with walks and errors. “This is a great hitting team. They’ve proven that all year,” Bergmann said. “They’ve put up big runs in most of their games. You can’t give a team like that extra outs, especially that many in an inning.” Grafton senior captain Madi Johnson Hass said her team had to stay positive even after facing a large deficit through one inning of play. “As a senior I try my best to encourage people,” Hass said. “When you do that it gets someone’s confidence and energy up. I had confidence we were going to flush that aside. You have to have a short memory. After that we had a pretty good rest of the game.” Coach Bergmann agreed. “After that, we settled down. We played much better defense, and we were able to keep them at a much more reasonable number each inning from there. You can look and say we were there and battling. That first inning goes sideways on you and that’s a tough hole to dig out of.” With Monday’s 18-6 victory over Hartford, Coach Dischler hopes the Spartan offense can continue its spring snowball. Just like the spring weather, coach hopes his team is beginning to heat up. “Yesterday and today we hit the ball really well all the way through the lineup,” Dischler said. ”They’re playing well right now so we hope to keep it going.”