Advance storms past Bismarck to advance to C1D2 semifinals

ADVANCE, Mo. - The third-seeded Advance Hornets took advantage of hosting the Class 1, District 2 softball tournament as well as a 14-strikeout performance from starting pitcher Addison Carlton and eliminated six-seeded Bismarck Thursday afternoon 10-1 at Westfield Park in Advance.

The Advance offense blistered the ball all game long, collecting 12 hits as Carlton and Brogan Hawkins led the assault with three hits each while Hawkins and Natalee Roper each drove in three runs and scored three times. Hawkins smashed an inside-the-park homerun in the button half of the fourth inning and Maggie Stubenrauch tripled in the bottom of the sixth frame, driving in Hawkins to bust the game wide open.

“I thought we did a good job of jumping on their pitcher early,” Advance coach James Hamlin said about scoring early on the Indians. “We talk a lot about starting off the game scoring runs early to get take the momentum and get things going in our favor early so I was proud of how our girls swung the bats and took advantage of getting baserunners home.”

Although the Hornet’s offense displayed robust numbers on the day, the story was the dominance of Carlton on the mound. Carlton struck out the side in the second and third innings and struck out at least two batters in every inning except for the first inning.

“Jumping out and getting the lead early on is always a big help being a pitcher,” Carlton said. “Knowing you have three runs to work with helped me focus to try and not give up the lead. Plus, I knew coming into the game that it was go time and I needed to lock down and do my job in the circle.”

“Addison (Carlton) did an excellent job today of keeping their hitters off balance,” Hamlin said. “Bismarck has some good hitters and she was able to move the ball around, change speeds and throw a variety of pitches and stayed ahead of the hitters in counts and had some good defense behind her to help when they did make contact.”

Carlton hopes this time around the results are a little different than the first time the two teams met on April 13 when the Eagles bested Advance 7-4 in extra innings.

“Oran is all about keeping the defense guessing,” Carlton said. “We just need to be ready for anything and stay focused. We also need to be aggressive at the plate and come ready to hit.”

Advance (14-5) moves on to face second-seed Oran (18-7) who defeated seventh-seeded Leopold 12-2 in the C1D2 semifinals on Monday at 6 p.m. at Westfield Park in Advance.