A late-inning explosion from the bats of the Columbus softball team led the Wildcats (6-2, 4-0) to an 8-2 victory over the hosting Lone Tree Lions (3-4, 2-4), allowing the Wildcats to remain undefeated in conference play.

Lone Tree starting pitcher Alex Dautremont was able to survive the early innings, stranding the bases loaded and limiting damage in a second-inning jam, when the Wildcats built a 2-0 lead. That lead was erased in the fourth inning, as a short Lion Rally was capped off by a pair of RBI singles from Haley Bockelman and Vivian Zaruba.

Just as it seemed the Lions had reclaimed the momentum, though, a single swing of the bat changed the complexion of the game, as junior Daniela Diaz blasted her first home run of the season over the left field fence, “I wasn’t really sure what I was trying to do there, I was just trying to help my team out, I put all my weight on my back leg and drove it. I didn’t even realize it was a home run until I hit second base.”

The homer gave Columbus a 3-2 lead, and the ‘Cats didn’t look back from there. A pair of RBI groundouts from Jaqueline Farrier and Jessica Del Rio extended the Wildcat lead to 5-2 in the middle of the fifth, and RBI singles from star sluggers Lily Coil and Kennedy Woepking tacked on three more in the sixth.

Coil took the mound, taking the ball from starting pitcher Woepking, and slammed the door from there, pitching three shutout innings to finish the evening.

Defense had been an issue for Columbus through the first several games of the season, averaging over five errors per game, and while his team still committed three errors, Columbus head coach Dustin Traylor credited his defense for limiting the mental mistakes, “They were trying to make a play, we threw the ball away once down the first base line, Ellie [Sanders] overthrew first base and moved some runners up trying to double a kid off. Those errors I can accept, it’s the ones where we lose our mind and forget what we need to do with the ball when bad things happen. It was tremendous improvement.

For Lone Tree, head coach Javonte Squiers chalked the game up to a lack of energy, something which he said was both on himself and his players, “I think it’s maybe a little bit of both. [The players] should just expect to come out with energy every day, and leading to this game we had energy every game. I didn’t think it would be a problem today, but you could just tell we came out flat-footed and dead.”

The Lions return to action on Saturday as they take on Wapello and Central City in the Central City tournament, while Columbus has the weekend off to prepare for Central Lee on Monday.