On May 24th, the Belleville Wildcats softball team played at Lake Mills, where Coach Connie Wunschel stated, "We ran into a buzz saw. Their pitching is some of the best, and between the two we faced, they struck out 13 of the 17 they faced." The Wildcats fell to Lake Mills, 0-16 in 5 innings.

Kailey Prochaska had the only hit in the game.

"They struck hard and fast in the bottom of the 1st inning, batting around the lineup plus 3, scoring 7 runs," explained Wunschel. "They put 4 more across in the 2nd and 4 in the 3rd. Lindsey Kittleson then came in to pitch the final 1 1/3 innings, facing 10 batters, striking out 1, hitting 1, walking 3 and giving up only 1 hit and 1 run. Defense played well behind her."

The next day the team traveled to Waterloo, looking for a win after a previous loss to them, but with no luck. The final score was Waterloo 13, Belleville 3.

"We hit the ball better this time but it seemed to go directly to one of their players," commented Wunschel. "As a team we only struck out 6 times, walked 5 times and had 5 hits."

Belleville started the game with a base hit from Micky Stampfl, who stole 2nd and moved to 3rd on Raina Nicholson's ground out but stayed there as the Wildcats weren't able to get her across home plate. Waterloo's first two batters reached on errors to score and at the end of that inning, the Wildcats had a great double play. With Waterloo runners on 1st and 3rd, Mackenzie Downing caught a fly ball and tossed it to Claire Patrow at 3rd to out the runner trying to move into scoring position.

Waterloo plated 3 more runs in the 2nd and 7 in the 3rd to put the game away. The Wildcats didn't give up and scored their 3 in the 4th inning, one batter short of batting through the order.

"On one out, Kailey Prochaska hit a hard shot between SS and 3rd, followed by a hit off the pitcher by Lindsey Kittleson where Prochaska moved to 3rd," said Wunschel. "Lindsey moved to 2nd on a passed ball, Averi Boyum walked to load the bases. Emilee Ehlert then was thrown out on a grounder to 2nd, but we scored Kailey. Karena Simmons then came up with another base hit to score the last 2 runs."

Kailey Prochaska pitched the entire game, facing 27 batters, striking out 12, walking 5 and she gave up 9 hits.

"She may have taken the loss but her pitching command was much better than it has been at times," said Wunschel. "She was hitting the spots that I wanted, and her change up was working well. She was able to keep them a bit more off balance this time, as only 1 player had 2 hits for Waterloo."

Micky Stampfl was 2x2 with 2 stolen bases to lead the team in batting.

The game against Cambridge on May 27th was rained out and moved to June 2nd. On June 3rd the Wildcats will host Marshall for Parent's and Senior Night, and play at Dodgeville on June 5th.