Taylor Cuchra homers twice as Marquette slugs way past Serena

SERENA – When asked what the location and type of the two pitches were that she hit for a pair of two-run homers against Serena on Wednesday, Marquette senior Taylor Cuchra paused.

“I’m guessing they were both on fastballs a little up in the zone, but I honestly don’t remember,” Cuchra said with a shoulder shrug. “I just see the pitch and if it’s there I try and hit it.”

Cuchra’s two homers, her third and fourth of the season, were part of a 14-hit Crusaders’ attack. That, along with solid pitching from Kinley Rick, added up to a 13-3 victory over the Huskers in five innings.

Marquette improved to 6-1 with its fourth straight win. Serena dropped to 1-1.

“We are playing with a lot of confidence right now,” Cuchra said. “Everyone is doing their job, and we all want each other to do well. Softball is a blast right now.”

The Crusaders, who are hitting just over .400 as a team and have scored in double figures in five games, scored four runs in the first, with Kelsey Cuchra lining an RBI double to left center, Avery Durdan and RBI single and Caleigh Rick also driving in a run.

“Kelsey plays on a pretty good travel ball team and sees really good pitching because of that,” Taylor Cuchra said of her sister who is now hitting .571 with 15 RBIs on the season. “She goes into every at-bat wanting to make hard contact, and there haven’t been many of her hits that weren’t hit hard this year so far. I think she’s just a really good hitter who is going to keep getting better.”

Serena responded with two runs in the bottom half of the inning on a two-run, two-out double by Maddie Glade.

“After a little bit of struggle in the first inning I thought Kinley came back and pitched really well from there,” Marquette coach Curtiss Johnson said. “She did exactly what a pitcher needs to do with a lead and that’s throw strikes.

“I feel like over the years Marquette teams have always hit the ball pretty well and were able to score runs. But this team is special, and they’ve all put in the work to be solid hitters. I feel like the key for us will be pitching and defense, and both of those things were pretty good today as well.”

The Crusaders scored three runs in the second on an RBI single by Taylor Cuchra and a two-run single by Makayla Backos. They added four in the fourth – two on Taylor Cuchra’s homer to left, and RBI groundout by Kealey Rick and Cakeigh Rick – and two in the fifth on Taylor Cuchra’s second two-run blast.

The Cuchra sisters each finished with three hits each, as did Backos, while Hunter Hopkins and Durdan added two hits apiece. Kinley Rick allowed five hits, three earned runs, with three walks and two strike outs in five innings.

Serena closed out the scoring in the bottom of the fifth when Jenna Setchell led off with a triple to the right-centerfield fence and scored on a sacrifice fly by RayElle Brennan.

Serena starter Maddie Glade (0 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 2 ER) took the loss, while Cassie Walsh (5 IP, 10 H, 9 R, 7 ER, 1 BB, 1 K) pitched in relief.

“Marquette absolutely hit the [expletive] out of the ball today,” Serena coach Kelly Baker said. “We missed some of our spots here and there, but it was one of those days where even when we’d hit a great spot, they’d find a way to put a good swing on it. They were consistently able to hit the ball where we weren’t, and it seemed like every good contact we had the ball went right to them. You have to bring your A game into the circle against Marquette and we weren’t able to do that today.

“This was only our second game, so well get things together. This was just a game where you tip your cap to the opponent and start focusing on the next one.”

Marquette will host Amboy on Thursday, while Serena is off until Wednesday when it hosts Sandwich.