Lady Vikes fall to H'Town

Weather couldn’t prevent the game between the Hawks and Vikings from happening. After one delay already, the teams squared off on Monday, April 22 when the sun was shining and the wind was swirling. North Branch opened the scoring in the bottom of the first inning when they did some two-out damage. Kaylee Lofboom drew what seemed to be an innocent two-out walk, but Kelsey Laffin followed with a single, putting runners at first and second. Lofboom came around to score when Paige Yoch ripped an RBI double. The score remained 1-0 until the top of the third inning when the Hawks scored four runs on four hits and a North Branch error. The Vikings cut the lead to two in the bottom of the third. Laffin reached on a fielders choice and moved to third after two straight wild pitches. Yoch notched her second RBI of the day when we drove Laffin home on a single up the middle. Hermantown was relentless, though, adding a single run in the fourth and fifth inning before blowing the game open in the sixth with a four-run frame, highlight by a three-run bomb. Casey Hovland knocked in her first RBI of the year in the bottom of the sixth, but at that point, a comeback would’ve been next to impossible. Hermantown parked another homerun, this one of the two-run variety, in the seventh inning for the final tally of 12-3. Lofboom took the loss for North Branch, her first on the year, after going five innings. She gave up six runs, only four of them earned, on seven hits and four walks. Britta Anderson pitched the last two innings, giving up the final six runs on five hits on a walk. Lofboom was also 2-for-3 with a walk and a run scored, Yoch was 3-for-4 with two RBI's and Hannah Hubbard was 1-for-1 with a walk. “I though we hit the ball OK today,” Head Coach Ron Trunk said. “We need to continue to work on improving our defense, we still giving up to many unearned runs."