By TYLER HENRY
Lead Sportswriter - Salina Post
The Southeast of Saline softball team turned heads once again on Monday, punching up against an NCKL foe and emerging with a sweep.
The Lady Trojans held on to defeat Clay Center in a 5-4 pitchers' duel to open the set, then exploded to win 14-3 in a mercy-rule shortened nightcap.
Game One: SE of Saline 5, Clay Center 4
Through the first four innings of this game, Karlee Zurfluh looked unhittable, helping her team take a 2-0 lead into the fifth.
That work would be quickly undone by Clay Center, who plated two runs in both the fifth and sixth, but a pair of SES runs would keep the score level going into a pivotal seventh inning.
Neither team would score in the seventh, and as the game went to extras, Zurfluh found her groove again, keeping the Lady Tigers off the board in the top of the eighth.
Southeast’s affinity for small ball paid dividends once again as Adyson Rohr laid down a perfect squeeze bunt to score the game-winning walkoff run, bringing Emma Zurfluh home under a close attempt at the plate.
Karlee Zurfluh collects another well-deserved win, allowing no earned runs, walking just one, and striking out six.
Game Two: SE of Saline 14, Clay Center 3
Game one may have been tight, but the nightcap was anything but as the Lady Trojans answered a three-run top of the first with five of their own in the home half.
Clay Center ran out of steam after their initial charge, failing to push another run across the plate, and with two more Lady Trojan runs in the second and seven in the fourth, SES wrapped this game up in just five innings.
Reese Heinrich and Kimber Ogorzolka both closed out game two with three hits, and Emma Zurfluh was an RBI machine, driving in four in the win.
In the circle, Carlee Dye settled in, recording four strikeouts and allowing just two earned runs in the win.
With this sweep, SES improves to 10-2 while Clay Center drops to 2-12.