POWER SURGE: Seneca blasts 4 homers in TCC victory over Marquette

SENECA — The Seneca softball team has scored almost 11 runs per game this season but many of those tallies haven’t come via the long ball.

That was until Tuesday’s Tri-County Conference game with rival Marquette.

The Fighting Irish blasted four home runs — one each by the first four hitters in the lineup, Alyssa Zellers, Emma Mino, Camryn Stecken and Lexie Buis — to back the pitching of Tessa Krull in an 11-1 triumph in five innings over the Crusaders.

“We really haven’t hit many home runs this season and it’s been one of our fan base’s complaints,” Seneca coach Brian Holman said with a laugh. “We’ve had some cold games and others where the wind has blown in which tends to make the ball not carry. Today was a great day to hit and once we found our timing everything fell into place.”

The win kept Seneca’s unbeaten streak alive overall at 24 games and in league play at 11.

Marquette dropped to 18-5 and 6-4 in TCC action.

The hosts scored in the second when Audry McNabb singled off Marquette starting and losing pitcher Taylor Cuchra (3⅓ IP, 7 H, 6 ER, 2 BB, 2 K), stole second and scored on an error. The visitors tied the game in the third on a no-doubt-about-it home run to center off the bat of Kelsey Cuchra, her eighth of the year.

From there Krull (5 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 7 K) retired the final seven batters she faced.

Seneca then took the lead for good in their half of the third on a two-run homer by Zellers, and two outs later, a solo homer to right by Buis to make it 4-1.

“I wasn’t trying to hit a home run, but I was trying to put the ball in play, mainly up the middle and just hit it as hard as I could,” Zellers said. “Taylor has a really good curveball, but I also know she’s going to try and pitch me fastballs inside to set up the curve on the outside. Down 1-2 with the last pitch I saw outside, I was looking for the pitch in and was telling myself ‘quick hands.’ I guess it worked out.”

The Irish then used a two-run blast to left by Mino, followed by a solo dinger by Stecken off reliever Savanah Erickson (1⅓ IP, 5 H, 3 ER) to make it 8-1.

“We’ve had games in the past with Marquette where we haven’t added on and they’ve come back on us,” Holman said. “Today the message was to keep the pressure on the entire game through. I thought we did a great job of that.

“Tessa did a good job of settling in. We feel like if we can give her a lead she’s going to really bear down and get the job done for us. We mixed in a couple of really nice defensive plays (a diving catch by McNabb in the first and leftfielder Graysen Provance’s retreating grab near the fence in the fifth) which was great to see.”

Seneca closed out the game in the fifth with two outs when Mino lined a two-run single down the rightfield line and scored on the same play after a pair of throwing errors.

“Seneca just hit the snot out of the ball today and few went over the fence so credit them,” Marquette coach Curtiss Johnson said. “I didn’t think we made many mistakes defensively until that last play and they just hit the ball hard and far. Some days that how it goes. (Seneca) makes you as a pitcher have to throw a little more fine than normal.

“These are learning moment games. This isn’t a team we’ll play in the postseason, but it’s a really good team that gives us another chance to prepare for when we get there. If we want to get where we want to come regional time, we hopefully will take some things from today and use them.”

Marquette is back in action on Wednesday at Pontiac and returns home on Thursday with a rematch against Seneca.