Northside softball starts off 2025 with a win over Rutland

WARNER ROBINS — Dyson Field saw action for the first time in 119 days on Wednesday as the Northside Lady Eagles (1-0) dispatched the Rutland Lady Hurricanes (0-1) in three innings, 15-0.

Seven players in the batting order had a run batted in, including all but one senior according to coach Travis Spell.

“We have a good group of seniors this year, I think all of them had at least a RBI, except for one. Seniors showed out in their first game, that’s what I told them to do. I said, ‘Hey y’all lead the way’ and they led by example.”

Three observations:

Kadence Cooley(ing) down the competition

Senior Kadence Cooley showed out in the first start of her senior year taking care of business on both sides of the mound.

At the plate she led the team with a perfect 3-for-3 outing and drove in a team-high four runs. She nearly had her first home run of the season in the third with a ball that just hit below the fence topper.

On the mound she pitched all three innings and struck out seven of the 12 batters she faced.

“There’s still always room [to improve], she missed a couple of spots, and she knows that today. But she did have a pretty good game hitting wise,” Spell said. “It’s just her approach transferring what we do in the cage to out here.”

Monster first inning

Of the 15 runs the Lady Eagles scored on Wednesday, 13 of them came in the first inning.

Rutland’s starter struggled to find the strike zone with only 26 of her 71 pitches going for strikes. That, paired with the four defensive errors allowed the Northside offense to run freely as they scored on eight out of nine at-bats at one point in the first inning.

“We’ve been out here practicing throughout the summer and they’ve been putting in a lot of work out in the batting cage and out on the field, and I think it just goes to show the hard work they put in during the summer,” Spell said.

Finishing the job

Although the first inning did eventually end, the Lady Eagles took care of things on the defensive end in the second.

The first at-bat was a 1-3 groundout and Cooley struck out the remaining two. But when they got to the bottom the offense didn’t come as easy.

Although errors and walks helped Northside in the first, they hit it straight to the defense in their three at-bats in the second.

They did get the benefit of an error on the third as the shortstop fumbled with the ball before missing the throw to first, but Alyssa Hoffmeister was still barely thrown out at second base.

“You’ll have a good inning, you’ll have a bad inning…I mean softball is gonna be softball,” Spell said. “[Rutland] did make all the plays that were to them that next inning…they made the plays on two of them, one they threw over and we tried to be aggressive like I told the girls we were going to be and got thrown out at second.”

When the bottom of the third rolled around the Lady Eagles drew their final walk as E’vejia Burgman took a base and Cooley brought her home with a line drive to center that just stayed inside the park.

That run came home two at-bats later with a RBI single from Brynli Burch.

UP NEXT

Northside will head to Liberty County for their next matchup on Friday, April 8 at 6 p.m.