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Photo Courtesy of Columbus Wildcat Softball Social Media

The Hillcrest Academy summer sports programs hosted the Hillcrest Classic over the weekend. On the softball diamond, the Columbus Wildcats lifted the trophy after a pair of wins. The Wildcats first beat Danville 15-4 in five innings to open the day. Columbus scored in every frame, posting four in the first, one in the second, six in the third and two in each of the fourth and fifth innings for the win. Columbus had 14 team hits, led by four from Jocelyn Fulton including a homer, Kennedy Woepking ended with three hits and Sera Vela and Lily Coil each had two. Woepking got the win in the circle, working five and a third innings, giving up just one hit and two earned runs while striking out eight. In the championship game, Columbus got by English Valleys 5-1. The Wildcats took a 4-0 lead with one in the first, two in the third and another run in the fourth before the Bears got on the board with one in the fifth. Columbus answered with one of their own in the bottom half. The Wildcats had seven hits in the win, two each from Coil and Fulton with Fulton driving in three. Coil went the distance in the circle, giving up four hits, one run and striking out nine. The Wildcats are now 9-9 on the year and host Pekin Monday.

Hillcrest softball split two contests on the day, dropping their first to English Valleys 6-5 before rebounding to knock off Danville 13-3 in the third place game. Against the Bears, the Ravens were up 5-1 after two, but EV chipped away with two in the third, one in the fifth and a pair in the seventh to win it. Hillcrest had eight hits as a team, with two each and an RBI from Esther Hughes and Grace Miller. Leah Bontrager spent the morning in the circle, giving up seven hits, four earned runs and striking out six in the loss. For third, Hillcrest beat Danville for the second time in a week. The Ravens led 8-2 after two innings and kept pouring it on, smacking 15 hits in the victory. Malia Yoder was five for five in the win and Kylee Statler drove in four to lead the Hillcrest offense. Bontrager threw five innings allowing six hits, three earned runs and striking out eight. The Ravens are now 4-10 this season.

The Hillcrest boys took second in their home tournament. They squeaked out a first round victory over English Valleys 3-2. The game was scoreless until the fifth, when each team got a pair, then Hillcrest recorded the winning run on an infield single from Noah Miller in the sixth that scored Seth Ours. Miller, just cleared for some baseball activities this week following a pre-Christmas injury during basketball season, spoke about the at-bat and the first RBI of his year. “My mentality was, I’m going to get up there and the first good pitch I see, I’m going to put the bat on it. That’s what happened and I ended up getting the run in. While I haven’t been on the field I have been putting in the work recovering. Surprisingly, it wasn’t really on my mind though that it could have been my first RBI or first important hit. I just went up there with the mentality that I had a job to do and I want to get it done.”

He and Grant Bender had the only hits in the game. Jace Rempel recorded the victory on the mound, going the distance on 103 pitches giving up four hits, two runs, walking two and striking out six. The championship game saw the Ravens match up with perennial power No. 4 in Class 1A Kee, Lansing, and the Kee Hawks were pushed before securing a 9-6 win. Kee High jumped out to a 8-0 lead after two innings before the Raven comeback began. Hillcrest got one in the third, two in the fourth and three in the fifth to get within 8-6 before Kee finished the win with a late insurance run. The nightcap highlight included not one, but two opposite field bombs from Ours. The freshman spoke after the game about hitting the two homers. “I think the first…I kind of knew it was gone right off the bat. It felt nice. Knowing the right field fences are shorter, I just kind of knew. The second one, was the cherry on top. Rounding the bases and seeing everyone coming out to home plate is just an awesome feeling.”

He drove in four total. Grant Bender, Phoenix Anderson and Rowan Miller all got time on the mound. With the split, the Ravens are now 6-8 this year. The Hillcrest boys and girls host Louisa-Muscatine Monday.