EFFINGHAM — Lucy Fearday only needed one run.
But, for good measure, she got much more than that.
The St. Anthony softball team’s ace, Fearday received 11 runs in the Bulldogs’ 11-0, six-inning win over Teutopolis in the annual Cross Creek Classic at Evergreen Hollow Park on Friday.
However, the night circled back around to the senior’s performance.
“Lucy came out determined,” St. Anthony head coach Makayla Taylor said. “She has this fire in her eye, too — she’s ready to go and you know that she’s ready to go.”
Fearday pitched a complete game, allowing one hit and striking out nine batters. She threw 77 pitches, 60 for strikes.
Taylor credited her coaching staff for helping with that brilliant performance, though.
“That relays to both of our assistant coaches,” Taylor said. “We work with them heavily on pitching and kudos to my Dad — Tim Walsh — tonight, he called a great game.”
Taylor added that the performance from Nancy Ruholl in the junior varsity game — a 5-0 win for the Bulldogs — carried over into the varsity contest, too.
“Nancy Ruholl threw the game before this and threw all seven innings and we haven’t had a full JV game before, so we had high expectations for the next pitcher in this varsity game,” Taylor said. “That JV game set the tone for us.”
For Fearday, having the offense to back her up gave her some much-needed breathing room, too.
“When we came into this, we wanted to have good quality at-bats and that’s what we did,” Taylor said. “We made (Courtney Gibson) work today and that was our goal; we did a good job chipping away every inning.”
St. Anthony finished with 15 hits and forced the Teutopolis ace to throw 147 pitches.
Five different Bulldog hitters finished with multiple hits.
Leadoff hitter Cameran Rios had two. Catcher Hailey Niebrugge hit a double and a triple and had three RBIs. Outfielder Stacie Vonderheide had two hits and drove in Sydney Kibler for the first run of the game in the second inning. Fearday added two hits and one RBI to the cause and Addie Wernsing led the team with three hits and two RBIs, while Adysen Rios, Anna Faber and Abbi Hatton had one hit each.
Kibler — the St. Anthony first baseman — also hit a titanic solo home run to left field that cleared the road leading to the parking lot that left Taylor in awe, as well.
“I don’t think it’s landed yet,” Taylor laughed. “I think every team we play, they want to go in there and you want to see what they have at first, but when she stays loose and stays consistent in there, she knows what she’s looking for and then it just came off the bat and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. Where’s it at?'”
Kibler, though, thanked Dan Niebrugge — Hailey’s dad — for helping her with her swing before the game.
“Before the game, things weren’t going my way, but Dan (Niebrugge) threw front-toss and told me there was nothing wrong with my swing; I just wasn’t watching the ball,” Kibler said.
Though Kibler may not have been watching the ball before, she did when it sailed over the left field fence in the fourth inning.
What the junior also enjoyed watching, though, was her team lifting the large, circular trophy over their heads after the game for the second-straight year.
That, like the home run, was equally pleasing.