Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton once again handed Park Rapids' varsity fastpitch softball team its first loss of the season.
During the high school softball season, D-G-F defeated Park Rapids 11-3 in the Section 8AA playoffs after the Panthers opened the season with a 21-0 record.
On Tuesday night at Glyndon, D-G-F defeated Park Rapids 4-3 and 10-9 in a pair of Prairies Lakes Conference 18U games. Park Rapids entered the doubleheader with a 4-0 record in its first season in the conference.
D-G-F used a wild pitch to score the winning run in the bottom of the seventh inning in the first game and held off a late rally by Park Rapids in the second game for the sweep.
In the first game, Park Rapids took a 2-0 lead in the third inning when Natalie Kinkel and Tara Johanning reached on errors and Kaisa Coborn lined an RBI double.
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Singles by Maria Pake and Breahna McCollum led to a run in the fourth before McKenna Payne walked and scored on a wild pitch in the fifth to tie the game at 2-2.
A double by Brooke Jerger and singles by Coborn and Rilee Michaelson gave Park Rapids a 3-2 lead in the sixth before Maria Watt singled and scored on a wild pitch to tie the game at 3-3 in the bottom of the sixth and Kiarra Summers walked and scored the winning run on a wild pitch with one out in the seventh.
Coborn and Michaelson both went 2 for 3 as Park Rapids finished with seven hits. Jerger started and allowed one run on two hits and one walk with seven strikeouts over the first four innings while Michaelson gave up three runs on two hits and five walks over the final 2.1 innings for the loss. Park Rapids committed four errors in the game.
Jena Bjelland struck out eight in going the distance for D-G-F.
In the second game, D-G-F jumped out to an 8-0 lead before Park Rapids rallied.
A triple by Pake and a single by Morgan Tollefson led to three runs in the first while an error led to two runs in the second and a two-out error led to three runs in the third as D-G-F took the early lead.
After Coborn walked and scored on an error in the bottom of the fourth, D-G-F claimed a 9-1 lead in the top of the fifth on a single by Katlyn Brenna and a double by Summers.
A double by Sara Simpson and RBI singles by Kinkel and Jerger sparked a three-run inning as Park Rapids cut the gap to 9-4 in the fifth.
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Singles by Pake, Tollefson and McCollum gave D-G-F a 10-4 advantage in the sixth before Park Rapids scored five times in the bottom of that inning on Simpson's RBI double, Kinkel's RBI single and Johanning's two-run double. Bjelland, who took over on the mound for Summers, struck out two of the next four batters to preserve the win.
Kinkel, Jerger and Simpson all went 2 for 3 to lead Park Rapids' seven-hit attack. Jerger went the distance, surrendering 10 runs on nine hits with four walks and seven strikeouts.
Tollefson went 4 for 4 with four RBI while Summers and Pake each went 2 for 3 to pace D-G-F's offense.
