Lady Knights move to 8-12 with 3-1 victory over Alton in softball

Multiple-hit game - Katelin Huelsmann had two hits in the Mater Dei softball team’s 10-5 loss at Nashville. PHOTO BY MATT WILSON    The Mater Dei Knights softball team won one of their four games last week with a win over Alton and setbacks to Nashville, Gillespie and Belleville East.
    The Lady Knights are now 8-12 on the season and they played at Gillespie on Monday before hosting Central on Wednesday for their only two games of the week.
    Gillespie 2, Mater Dei 0: The Lady Knights played a strong game despite falling on the road Monday, April 20.
     Paxton Reid was the story of the game as she tossed a four-hit, complete-game shutout with three walks and three strikeouts for the Miners.
    MD senior Taylor Robert was just as good as she went the distance and allowed one earned run on three hits, three walks and three strikeouts in an 81-pitch effort.
    Harper O’Brien had half of the MD hits with two singles while Carissa Rich added a double and Robert singled.
     The Miners got single tallies in the fourth and fifth innings. Mater Dei out hit the Miners 4-3 in the contest while neither team committed an error on defense.
    Nashville 10, Mater Dei 5: The Hornettes had two good innings in their home win over the visiting Lady Knights on Thursday in Washington County.
    Mater Dei took a 1-0 lead in the top of the second only to see Nashville tie the game in the bottom of the inning. MD took a 3-1 lead in the top of the third inning before Nashville scored the next nine runs to steal the game.
    The Lady Knights had a dozen hits with 11 singles and one double. Taylor Robert was 2-for-4 with two singles while Emma Diekemper was 2-for-2 with two singles, two walks, two runs scored and a stolen base.
    Katelin Huelsmann added two singles while Riley Rolves had two singles, a double, a run scored, two RBI and one stolen base.
    Emma Diekemper took the loss for the Lady Knights with 3-2/3 innings of work where she allowed two earned runs on nine hits, four walks and one strikeout. The MD defense had three fielding errors that accounted for eight unearned runs.
    Payton Basden had a day for the Hornettes with a single, a homer, a walk, an RBI and three runs scored. Anessa Boldrey was the winning pitcher with five earned runs on 12 hits and six walks in six innings of work.
    Mater Dei took a 1-0 lead when Emma Diekemper led off the top of the second inning with a single before later scoring on a wild pitch.
    Basden sent out a solo homer to left field in the bottom of the inning to tie things up after two innings of play.
    Mater Dei put their first three batters on in the third inning when Chloe Engelman walked and both Robert and Ellisen Wheelan singled to load the bases. After a double play and a walk, Rolves sent home two runners with a double to the gap for a 3-1, Mater Dei lead.
    Nashville took the lead for good in the bottom of the inning with five runs on three singles, an error and two walks as they led 6-3 entering the fourth inning.
    Mater Dei stranded two runners on base and lost another on the base paths in the top of the fourth inning.
    Nashville took the momentum and scored two more runs on a walk, a single and an error for an 8-3 lead. Avery Hoffman added a two-run double later in the inning for a 10-3 cushion.
    Mater Dei got two tallies in the top of the seventh inning on singles from Diekemper and Rolves before two ground outs and a strikeout ended things.
    Belleville East 3, Mater Dei 0: The Lady Knights managed just two hits in their road loss on Wednesday in Belleville.
    Mater Dei managed just singles from Ellisen Wheelan and Angeleen Wesselmann in the loss.
    Taylor Robert pitched well in the loss as she went the distance, allowing one earned run on five hits, six walks and five punch outs.
    Abi Monroe pitched a gem for the Lancers with a complete-game, two-hit shutout where she walked nine and struck out eight hitters.
    East took the lead for good in the bottom of the third inning when Malia Brewer reached on a fielding error while Ary Kohler reached on a two-out walk. Priya Bolling came up with the hit of the game with a two-run single for a 2-0 lead.
    They added an insurance tally in the sixth inning when Monroe walked, took second on a wild pitch, went to third on a ground out and scored on a ground out from Addie Kramowski.
    Mater Dei 3, Alton 1: The Lady Knights picked up a road win last Monday against the Redbirds.
    The game was scoreless through three innings before the Lady Birds took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the fourth inning.
    Mater Dei stole the win with three runs in the top of the sixth inning when Emma Diekemper led off with a walk. After the next two were retired, Diekemper scored on a single from Harper O’Brien for a 1-1 game.
    Katelin Huelsmann came through with the hit of the game, one batter later, when she took a 1-2 pitch over the left field fence for a two-run homer and a 3-1 lead.
    That was all of the offense Diekemper needed on the mound as she stranded a runner in the sixth and seventh innings to record the complete-game victory. The senior allowed one earned run on five hits, one walk and 11 strikeouts. She started 17 of her 25 hitters faced, with a strike.
    Huelsmann led the offense with a homer, a single, a run scored and two batted in during three at bats. Ellisen Wheelan added a double while Diekemper was 1-for-3 with a single, a run scored and a stolen base for MD.