The North Platte softball team poses with the first-place plaque after winning the North Platte Round Robin for the third consecutive season on August 26.
DEARBORN – For the third consecutive season, the North Platte Softball Invitational Round Robin was won by its host, the Lady Panthers.
North Platte (4-0) is coming off a remarkable 22-4 campaign and was the Class 2 District 7 Runner-Up and wasted no time building off that success. The Lady Panthers comfortably won all three games – with two shutouts – by a combined margin of victory of 39-2 on August 26.
North Platte started the fall off with a 15-0 win over East Buchanan (0-2), which was the same result when the KCI rivals played in the same tournament in 2022. Kate Wolf kicked her sophomore campaign off with a no-hitter, striking out five batters in a contest that only lasted three innings due to a mercy rule.
North Platte had seven singles in the first inning and took an early 6-0 advantage. The Lady Panthers scored another six runs in the second inning to push the lead to 12-0.
North Platte took advantage of the East Buchanan mistakes, with there being three walks and one error. Courtney Dehn had a 2-RBI triple, followed by Wolf having an RBI single and Kenedie Summers scored on a wild pitch.
North Platte put the game away in the third inning with Brooke Kretzer scoring on a wild pitch, Lindsay Ramsey connecting with an RBI double and Summers batting in Ramsey to make the score 15-0. The game was called then and there with no outs due to a 15-0 scoring margin.
North Platte erupted for 13 hits – led by Dehn who had three hits and three RBIs – as Wolf, Summers, Ramsey and Kretzer ended with two hits. East Buchanan had two errors on the day.
Lexington (2-1) was North Platte’s next victim with the host school winning 9-2 in the only contest that the Lady Panthers allowed a run. The pace of the game was much different than the first one, with only one total run scored in the first three innings.
Wolf singled on a line drive to center field to send Ramsey home in the bottom of the second inning to give North Platte a 1-0 lead. Lexington went up 2-1 in the bottom of the fourth inning, but the Lady Panthers responded with four hits and six runs scored, capped off with a 2-run home run to make the score 7-2.
North Platte ended up adding two more runs in the bottom of the fifth inning on a pair of RBI singles by McKenna Cunningham and Grace Williams. Dehn struck out two batters and Wolf struck out three batters.
North Platte finished the round robin with a 15-0 triumph over Pattonsburg with Winston (1-2) in another no-hitter by Wolf, who struck out 10 batters this go-round. The Lady Panthers had 14 hits in the win, led by Ramsey who had three hits and three RBIs.
North Platte kept the momentum going in another dominant win following the weekend when it headed to DeKalb (0-1) and came away with a comfortable 14-5 victory on August 28. The Lady Panthers will have their first non-tournament game at home when they host Bishop LeBlond on August 30.