They call her ‘Bear,’ a nickname she lived up to on Wednesday night as the junior hurler pitched viciously at the opening game of the Iowa State Softball Tournament. After committing two errors helping the first two Jayettes in the Perry order in the top of the first inning, Alexis Groet mauled down the next 16 batters she faced. A staggering 10 of those 16 Perry hitters went down a victim of the strikeout.

Groet eventually lost the no-hitter and the shut out all in one swing when sophomore Johanna Diw sent a deep shot over the left center field fence. But that was all the damage the Jayettes could muster as ‘Bear’ settled right back in, mauling down the rest of Perry hitters.

Aubrey Miller got the scoring going for the Indians with a solo shot to dead center in the bottom of the first. Her second on the season. Miller wound up 3 for 3 adding two singles and scoring another run in the bottom of the third along with Anna Jones when Alexis Westercamp shot a two run single through the left side of the infield. The 2, 3 and 4 hitters for Osky went a combined 8 for 9 on the day accounted for all the of the Indian runs as they downed thwarted the Jayettes hopes of advancing in the tournament with a final score of 3-1.

The Osky girls did have some base running gaffs as more opportunities presented themselves with runners in scoring positions and less that two outs. A couple of misinterpreted signs and as well as poor base running costs them at least a few insurance runs. It did not wind up hurting them in the end, but they will need all the runs they can get when Indians take on the Trojans of Fairfield today at 1pm. A rivalry of two area teams that has went the way of the Trojans in the two previous contests. Osky will hope to advance to the championship game on Friday but will have to “bear down” on a team that has recently had their number.

You can hear all the action on 99.5 KMZN with the pregame show starting at 12:45pm. The game will also be broadcast on the website at radiokmzn.com and the Radio KMZN mobile app.

Story by Zach Payne