Lydia Hammond dominant as Bradley-Bourbonnais cruises to season-opening win

BOURBONNAIS − The Bradley-Bourbonnais softball team hit the ground running in Tuesday’s season opener against Marian Catholic.

The Boilermakers scored nine runs over the first two innings, added three more runs in the fourth, and earned an abbreviated 12-0 win when Lydia Hammond capped a shutout performance with a scoreless fifth inning.

The Spartans only put four balls in play off Hammond, who struck out 12 batters and allowed just a pair of singles across her five innings of work. On the other side, the Boilermakers put the ball in play early and often, striking out just three times as a team and taking advantage of seven Marian Catholic errors.

With two runs in the first inning and seven more in the second, Bradley-Bourbonnais head coach Haylee Beck said it was nice to see the team be able to find success as early as they did.

“That was our number one game plan, to come out ready to set the tone,” she said. “In years’ past that’s been something that’s a little bit of a struggle for us, that first game. We’d wait until the fourth or fifth inning to decide to play some softball. It was awesome to come out really early, especially in the first two or three innings, and do a really good job.”

Bella Pusateri led off the bottom of the first with a single for the Boilermakers, and two batters later Suttyn Hop got the scoring started with a triple to the gap in right-center field, scoring herself when the throw home sailed to the backstop to make it 2-0.

In the bottom of the second with two runners on, an Avery Moutrey bunt single resulted in three runs when a couple of wild throws allowed Moutrey to round the bases. Two batters later, a two-run home run from Tristin Woods made in 7-0, and later in the inning a Bristol Schriefer bunt led to two more runs.

After a scoreless third, Bradley-Bourbonnais got three runs in the fourth on hits from Hammond, Olivia Woolman and Abbie Hofbauer.

Hammond struck out the final two batters of the game to earn the win. She allowed a single in the first and another in the fourth, striking out eight consecutive batters in between those hits.

“We’ve joked all the time that she’s fire,” Beck said. “That’s what she does on the mound. She brings energy, she gets jacked up when she hits a pitch that she really loves. She did that a lot today, so it was great to see.”

Hammond said she felt good about her execution in the circle, also giving credit to her coaching and Hop’s performance behind the plate.

“I feel great,” she said. “I would say that with coach Beck’s combinations and Suttyn’s great framing skills, it worked really great today to get the job done.”

Hammond and Hop are two of the team’s six upperclassmen, but with six sophomores rounding out the roster, the Boilermakers are skewing a bit younger this season.

Considering this relative youth, Beck said that the team’s hot start on Tuesday was nice to see.

“We’re really young this year, so any experience that we can have, any tone setting we can do, we want to do that,” she said. “The girls did a great job.”

The Boilermakers have a bit of a break before resuming action next week when they host Herscher on Monday and Coal City on Tuesday. But as they head forward in the season, Beck said she just wants to see more of the same from her team.

“One of the really great things about being young is that you don’t have the games behind you to be nervous or be afraid,” she said. “They’re just playing free and being themselves, and that’s how we want them to play. If they can continue to do that, we’re feeling good.”