It had to be one of the most unexpected prep athletic upsets in these parts for a long time.
A Middleville Thornapple Kellogg softball team that couldn’t score a single run in a doubleheader against Wayland last Wednesday turned the tables in a 7-5 shocker Saturday. It was the final round of the Thornapple Kellogg Invitational.
The Trojans scored four times in the fifth inning to battle back from a 4-3 deficit and managed to hold on the rest of the way. They only had seven hits to the Wildcats’ 10, but crossed the plate twice more often.
Wayland had scored three runs in the first inning, but managed only one more in both the third and sixth inning.
Catcher Kaylee Lown and pitcher Harmony Laker both clouted a home run for the ‘Cats. Lown and Clara Dutkiewicz both delivered three hits. Wayland struck out only twice. But TK’s defense held.
Laker pitched the first five innings and yielded seven runs on seven hits, striking out nine Trojan batters and walking one. Junior Madi Ludema came on in the sixth to hurl two scoreless innings in relief.
The loss was only the fourth overall this season against 14 victories and it has no effect on the O-K Gold Conference standings, in which the Wildcats are 4-0 atop the league.
Earlier in the tourney Saturday, TK defeated Comstock Park and Wayland mercied Delton 23-0.
Madi Ludema, Mackenzie Kositzky and Shelby VanHouten combined pitching on the mound, and allowed no hits in the game. Ludema also came up with three hits herself, a single, a double and a triple, to drive home four runs.
The Wildcats will resume O-K Gold Conference play with a doubleheader at Grand Rapids Northview Monday afternoon.
