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Hughes leads Lady Cards past Union
BLOOMFIELD -- Bloomfield right-hander Nicole Hughes fanned 12 while scattering four hits in a 5-1 Southwestern Indiana Athletic Conference win over visiting Union at the Northside Diamonds here Monday night.
Hughes struck out at least one batter in every inning -- including two Lady Bulldogs five of the seven frames she tossed -- and didn't allow a free pass.
"Nicole is solid, there's no getting around it," Bloomfield coach Nicole Peter said. "The thing with her is finishing. It's that understanding that when you get two strikes on a girl, there's other things you do as a pitcher.
"She's really staring to understand that and starting to get that killer instinct. She's very talented and once she gets that mental aspect it's going to be scary."
Offensively the Lady Cardinals exploited two Union errors and pounded out seven hits as they improved to 4-2 on the year and 2-1 in the league table.
"My hat's off to Union, Chriss Jobe's done a great job with those girls," Peter said. "Those girls are athletes and they put the bat on the ball and doing the right things."
After an RBI single by Kylee King and a run-scoring groundout by Marisa McIntosh staked Hughes to a 2-0 lead, Union finally got on the board in the fourth.
That's when a one-out single by Union starter Hannah Sullivan paid dividends after a double by Jennifer Eberhardt and an RBI ground out by Autumn Secrest.
Secrest's bouncer to second plated Sullivan and cut the lead in half. But it would be as close as the Lady Bulldogs would get the rest of the night.
In the home half of the fourth, Bloomfield dented the plate three times on UHS (3-4, 0-2) pitcher Sullivan who allowed all five runs on seven Lady Cardinal hits.
"We're at a point where we feel we can compete with about anybody," Jobe said of the effort his team displayed. "We know we've got to hustle, put out effort and focus against anybody we play against.
"If we do that we've got a chance and it was a pretty good ballgame for us minus the fourth inning and that's a credit to Bloomfield."
The rally began with a pair of groundball singles into leftfield that turned into runs on a two-base error off the bat of Marisa McIntosh.
The freshman scored on the third single of the frame -- this one from Jodie Deem.
"We did the little things," Peter said. "We got timely hitting, we got bunts down, we did some stealing and baserunning, we put it all together."
From there Hughes took over on the mound. The junior allowed just one more Lady Bulldog to reach base -- a double by Sullivan -- while fanning five of the last 10 hitters she faced with only two balls reaching the outfield.
"I was throwing pretty solid," she said. "My ball was moving and breaking and that's always a plus. That's always the first goal to make the ball move and I had plenty of help out there."
Hughes while happy with the win and the 12 strikeouts, still fell short of her ultimate goal of breaking the school standard for strikeouts in a game of 18.
"I thought maybe tonight would be it," she said. "I only had 12 but I'm working toward it."
Bloomfield hosts North Knox on Tuesday while the Lady Bulldogs will play at North Daviess.
Union 000 100 0 -- 1 4 2
Bloomfield 020 300 x -- 5 7 0
Hannah Sullivan and Kolbi Reynolds; Nicole Hughes and Abby Kindred. W -- Hughes, L -- Sullivan. 2B -- Autumn Secrest (U), Jennifer Eberhardt (U), Kylee King (B).