NORTH MANKATO — The road through the elimination bracket is never easy.
But the Mankato East softball team navigated it perfectly, sweeping New Ulm in the Section 2AAA championship series on Thursday at Caswell Park. The Cougars won both games in dominant fashion, taking Game 1 10-0, before winning 13-1 in the second game to return to state.
East fell to the Eagles 7-3 earlier in the section tournament, before winning three straight elimination games with its season on the line.
New Ulm couldn’t match the Cougars’ torrid hitting in the second game. Jayda Swalve smacked two doubles and a pair of singles while driving in five runs to lead the East offense.
Junior second baseman Carlie Wendinger and Swalve came up with hits as East scored two runs in the top of the second. The Cougars put things away in the third when Swalve and Emily Hacker each laced two-run doubles. Hacker’s two-run single up the middle and Swalve’s two-run single capped a four-run fifth inning for the Cougars. New Ulm’s lone run off Kylinn Stangl came on a bases-loaded hit by pitch in the fourth.
The Cougars banged out 14 hits in Game 1.
Senior center fielder Maddy Beaty collected three hits and scored three times as the Cougars erupted for six runs in the top of the third to take control. Winning pitcher Stangl and Swalve ripped two hits each. All in all, East had 10 different players find their way into the hit column in Game 1. Stangl allowed two hits while striking out five and walking two.
“It was a great game for us offensively,” said East coach Joe Madson after Game 1. “We had our timing down and sometimes that’s how it goes. It was contagious with the way we hit the ball into the gaps. Softball is such a momentum game and you could see our confidence level go up with each hit. Kylinn was hitting her spots and when she throws like that and we hit like that, we’re pretty good.
“Ramsay (Hopp) was pouring it into the strike zone and we were ready to hit. We work on getting our foot down a lot so that allows us to dial in. … When the ball starts spraying into the gaps you get aggressive. You get into that mindset that you’re not going to sit around and look for walks.”
In Game 1, East scored the game’s first run in the top of the first when Beaty beat out an infield single and scored on Stangl’s double into the right-center field gap. Kenley Staunton’s infield single triggered a six-run, third-inning burst. Beaty sliced an RBI single into left field before Hacker lined a run-scoring single up the middle and Swalve drove in two runs with a grounder through the hole.
Freshman catcher Harper Stangl capped the rally with a two-run double into the right-center field gap. East expanded the margin to 9-0 in the fourth behind Beaty’s leadoff single, along with Kylinn Stangl’s RBI triple into the right-field corner.
“We were hungry to get even with them,” Beaty said. “We had so much confidence that we could put the ball in play and now we’re ready to go back to state. We wanted to keep up with what we did Tuesday against St. Peter.”
East will be seeking to become the first team to ever win three straight titles when it begins play Tuesday in the Class AAA state tournament.