After a slow start, the Jefferson College softball team helped make the Joplin Bash a real smash last weekend.
The Vikings (14-5) lost 9-1 to Johnson County Community College Friday in the first game of the tournament before bouncing back to win their last four, including a 3-2 victory Friday over Northeastern Oklahoma A&M, which was the No. 6 ranked team in NJCAA Division I going into the weekend.
“We played Northeastern Oklahoma five times previously and had never beaten them,” Jeffco head coach Tony Cook said. “This sends us in the right direction. There were a lot of other teams watching.”
Anybody watching the hard-hitting Vikings surely noticed freshman Skylure Barrlow, who hit four home runs in a three-game span in Joplin and leads Jeffco with nine home runs, 26 RBIs and a .945 slugging percentage. Barrlow slammed a solo homer off of A&M pitcher Taylor Makowski, a 6-1 fireballer from Tomball, Texas.
“Skylure’s plate presence there against that (Makowski) bringing gas gave us all the confidence we needed,” Cook said.
Freshman Kaitlynn Williams started in the circle against the Norsemen and shut them out until the bottom of the sixth inning when they cut the Vikings’ lead to 3-2. Williams pitched a complete game and was backed by an offense that produced eight hits, including a double by Abby Rollet, a triple by Taylor Barnes and Barrlow’s round-tripper.
“Kaitlyn pitched one of her best games this season,” Cook said. “She kept a top-10 team off balance the entire game and gave us an opportunity to win. She mixed speeds very well.”
Hitting for power is fast becoming Jeffco’s calling card.
“We think that’s our strong point,” Cook said. “If you take a lazy approach to a ball we hit, we’re going to stretch out doubles and triples.”
Jeffco and Mineral Area College were tied 2-2 after three innings Saturday before the Vikings scored the last seven runs of the game to close out a 9-2 win. Barrlow stroked two more home runs and the freshman Rollet had a pair of doubles to pace the attack.
Rollet leads the Vikings with a robust .563 batting average.
“She’s seeing the ball better than anybody right now,” Cook said. “If she had any kind of upswing at all, she’d have 10 or 12 homers. We’re not going to change anything she’s doing. She doesn’t make outs. It’s tough on the opposition because she adapts so well.”
Starting hurler Taylor Nordwald, a sophomore, earned the win over MAC, going six innings and allowing five hits and one earned run. Sophomore Sarah Berry relieved Nordwald and pitched around a hit and a walk by fanning two.
“(Berry) is just now getting back into some bullpen sessions and we’re working her into the pitching staff,” Cook said.
In their second game Saturday, the Vikings scored 10 runs in the first inning against Southeastern Community College (West Burlington, Iowa) and won 12-3 in five innings.
The top of Jeffco’s batting order remained on fire with leadoff hitter Barnes collecting three hits and scoring three times. Rollet had three hits and two runs and Barrlow finished with three hits and three RBIs.
Freshman Corryn Hill pitched all five innings against the Blackhawks, scattering four hits and striking out eight.
“To be honest, (the final score) surprised me because they’re in a tough district and are off to a good start this season,” Cook said. “We had eight or nine consecutive hits and I don’t know if we’d done that for a long time. The girls felt good and they had energy and effort. If we can hit like this, there’s not a team in the country that can beat us.”
In the third and final game Saturday, the Vikings walked off with a 4-3 win over Ft. Scott (Kan.) Community College. Jeffco trailed the Greyhounds 2-0 but scored three runs in the fifth to go up 3-2. Ft. Scott tied the game 3-3 with a run in the sixth.
Barnes led off the bottom of the seventh with an infield hit on a bunt about six inches in front of the plate. She stole second base on the next pitch and scored the game-winning run on Rollet’s line single past first base.
Barnes has 20 stolen bases to lead the Vikings and is on pace to challenge Theresa DeCosty’s school record of 74 steals in a season (2014). She assumed the leadoff spot when freshman Abby Tiemann injured her thumb against Crowder on March 8. Cook said Tiemann would be back at the top of the order when she returns to the lineup, which could be this week.
Jeffco batsmen drop four straight to Crowder
Jefferson head coach Pat Evers, who joined the program nine years ago as the pitching coach, said he can’t remember the Vikings ever getting swept in a weekend series by a Region 16 opponent.
It happened Friday and Saturday in Neosho when regional rival Crowder College ambushed the previously hot Vikings (12-6-1) with four straight victories. Jeffco kept the first three games close, losing by a total of four runs, before the Roughriders hammered their guests in a 13-1 finale.
Evers said the Vikings hurt themselves defensively and were unable to get the timely hits that might have turned around the series. Jeffco was 2-for-32 at the plate with runners in scoring position over the four contests.
“I don’t know if they were as good as last year,” Evers said of Crowder (17-5), which beat the Vikings a year ago for the Region 16 championship. “The fourth game was what it was; we got behind early and walked some guys. But the first three games were very close.”
In the first game of the weekend, a 7-6 Crowder win, the Vikings faced Roughrider pitcher Zach Jackson, who is 5-0 this season. Jeffco outhit the hosts 9-7, but allowed five runs in the decisive third inning after a misplayed ball in the outfield extended the inning.
Freshman Riley Boyd, who started the year 2-0 on the mound for the Vikings, is now 2-2 after taking the loss. He allowed four walks, four hits and three earned runs in two and two-thirds innings.
“Riley needs to be better and he’s capable of doing that,” Evers said.
Freshman Dalton Doyle belted two solo home runs in the opener, but also struck out twice, which is becoming too common a theme for Evers’ liking. The Vikings have whiffed 154 times and are near the bottom of Division I in that category.
“That’s something we need to do a better job of and we’ve talked about that,” Evers said. “It might be a borderline pitch, but as far as indentifying pitches and getting down in the count, we’ve made it hard on ourselves.”
If that loss was hard to swallow, Evers really had to bite down hard after his team squandered an early 3-0 lead in Friday’s second game. The Roughriders scored six runs in the third, aided by a Viking error, to go up 7-4 before Jeffco countered with two runs in the fifth. Crowder scored an insurance run in its half of the eighth to seal an 8-6 decision.
Evers said his team missed an opportunity to beat one of the best juco pitchers in the country in Aaron Ashby, who they touched for six hits and six runs. Ashby did ring up 10 strikeouts.
At the plate, sophomore transfer Justin Perkins and returning sophomore Raul Elguezabal each had homers for Jeffco and freshman Matt Turino had four hits.
Viking lefthander Josh Ray didn’t escape the second inning, but the Seckman product allowed only three earned runs of the seven that were scored against him.
Relievers Drake Salsman, Cole Milam and Hunter Swift combined to allow the Roughriders just one run the rest of the game and shut them out over the last four innings.
“The bullpen did a good job,” Evers said. “We didn’t do a good job early and when you get a lead against a quality arm, and lose it, it’s disappointing.”
In the first game Saturday, the Vikings led again, this time 2-0 into the fifth. Freshman Jason Rackers was cruising on the hill for Jeffco until he surrendered a two-run homer to Colten Nix that tied the game. The man on base had reached on an error.
Crowder scored what proved to be the winning run in the bottom of the sixth for a 3-2 victory.
“Jason was good. He has the ability to be dominant,” Evers said. “It was a good outing, not a great one, and we needed a great one because the bullpen was taxed from the day before.”
Turino stayed hot at the plate with two of his team’s four hits and has raised his average to .309.
“Matt’s been overdue. He had some good at-bats but he didn’t have a lot to show for it,” Evers said.
In the 13-1 series finale, the Vikings were no-hit by two Crowder pitchers over five innings, with the game shortened by the mercy rule.
Before the trip to Neosho, Jeffco climbed into the NJCAA Division I national poll (March 6) at No. 12, with Crowder ranked seventh.
.