It would be a keen grasp of the obvious to say that Wayland softball is on a roll.
Coach Cheri Ritz’s Lady Wildcats claimed their 13th consecutive victory on the diamond Saturday, quite a turnaround from that awful “Bad Day at Bailey Park” just two weeks ago.
The ‘Cats won the Wayland Invitational by posting two shutouts, 10-0 over Comstock Park in the tourney semifinals and a 2-0 nail-biter over Division 1 state-ranked Jenison in the championship round.
Carli Miklusicak, who had been sidelined from pitching for a couple of weeks because of a shoulder injury, appears to have recovered, as she threw three innings of no-hit ball, nine up and nine down, in a game shortened in duration by the 10-run mercy rule. Later in the day, Miklusicak put an exclamation mark on sophomore Madi Ludema’s four-hit shutout against Jenison by crashing a solo tape measure homer that some observers may have gone 250 feet.
Leadoff hitter Hannah Rairigh went 2-for-2 with a double and scored the other run in the nightcap on a single by Lauren Wright.
Ludema yielded four hits and two walks and struck out three in her shutout performance.
In the first game Saturday morning, six different Wayland batters had one hit, including Rairigh, Wright, Miklusicak, Reese Veltman, Shelby VanHouten Kaidence Coon. Miklusicak drove in two runs with her hit. Wright came up with four stolen bases.
Six of the nine Comstock Park outs came via strikeouts.
The Wildcats scored six runs in the first inning.
The Wildcats will resume O-K Gold Conference play Tuesday against Kenowa Hills. They are 6-0 in the league and 17-4 overall.
