Softball finishes fall with impressive 7-1 record

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GREELEY -- Northern Colorado softball ended its first fall season under new coach Mark Montgomery on Saturday with a 1-1 split against Colorado State and Western Nebraska Community College.

The Bears fell behind 4-0 to the Rams early Saturday afternoon at Butler-Hancock Softball before nearly mounting a comeback in a 4-3 defeat. They then scored six runs in the first two innings and cruised to a 7-3 victory against the Cougars.

Northern Colorado outhit Colorado State 8-3 in the loss but some miscues from the Bears and some timely hitting by the Rams proved the difference. Northern Colorado had the tying run thrown out at the plate for the third out in the seventh inning.

"Colorado State is a great team and will continue to be a rival of ours," Montgomery said. "We just had too many things get in our way of completing a clean sweep through our fall schedule. The girls played well, we just ran out of innings, as they say.

"I'm proud of the strides we made this fall, and we've built some definite momentum as we turn our attention toward spring."

Erin Wilkinson hit a home run in the Bears' win against WNCC, and her sister Megan Wilkinson (freshman) showed some poise and talent in the circle with three scoreless innings.

Freshman Kacey Morgan also got some time in the circle in the win before giving way to senior Kellil Henderson, who figures to battle with Jamie Juelfs (started against the Rams) for the Bears No. 1 pitcher spot.

"It was great to get all our pitchers some work," Montgomery said. "We saw some good things from each this whole month, and I'm excited to see their continued development under (pitching) Coach (Mike) Forsythe.

"We shot out to the big advantage in that second game, but we kind of pulled off the throttle a little bit. That's something I talked to the girls about afterward and something we'll work on. We've got to have that killer instinct and focused energy when the games start to count."