MORAN — The Marmaton Valley softball team came into the 2016 season with a lot of questions surrounding it.
Over the first part of the year many of those questions and concerns have been answered in a large part by freshman Karlie Stephens.
Even so, neither Stephens nor any of her teammates had an answer for Northeast Arma on Monday night. The Vikings topped the Wildcats 7-2 in game one and 15-2 in game two.
“We were just a little off,” Marmaton Valley coach Kaylan Colgin said. “It just wasn’t our night.”
The Vikings raced out to a quick lead in game one as three stolen bases led to the first run of the game.
Stephens clamped down on the Northeast offense in the second inning and had a 1-2-3 frame, but the Wildcat offense struggled to get going. After Stephens led off the first inning with a walk, the Vikings retired six straight hitters and maintained their 1-0 lead going into the third inning.
In that inning, back-to-back two-out doubles by the Vikings helped stretch the lead to 4-0.
The home-half of the third saw the frustration continue to build for the Wildcat batters. Northeast retired the first two batters of the inning, before Stephens reached base after being hit by a pitch.
Stephens was left at first, however, as the Vikings buckled down and recorded the final out.
The teams exchanged scoreless innings in the fourth and Stephens retired the side without any damage in the fifth inning.
“(Stephens) was really good,” Colgin said. “(It was) just like normal. She kept (the ball) just where it needed to be.”
Then in the bottom of the fifth, the Wildcat offense got its feet under it.
The bottom of the order began the rally when No. 8 hitter Makayla Brooks led the inning off with a walk. Two batters later, Stephens singled and put runners at the corners for Isabelle Bigelow.
Bigelow doubled and Brooks scored with Stephens being held at third. Stephens scored later in the inning.
Those two runs were all Marmaton Valley was able to manage in the inning, but they had cut the lead in half and entered the sixth down 4-2.
Northeast answered right back in the top of the sixth and just like in the third, a pair of two-out doubles led to three runs and Northeast built their lead up to 7-2 and that is where the game finished after the teams played a scoreless seventh.
