Bradley softball returned to action again after starting its season at the Grand Canyon University Kickoff Classic last weekend.
A 6-3 win in the second game of a doubleheader against Northern Colorado on Feb. 12 was the highlight of the weekend for the Braves, who stand at 1-4 entering this weekend’s Roar City Invite in Nashville.
“It was great to be back out on the field,” Bradley head coach Amy Hayes said. “It wasn’t the outcome we wanted. But, I felt like we had growth throughout the whole weekend. And there were a lot of positive spots, [but] we definitely wanted to come out a little bit more consistent than we did.”
The Braves kicked off their season with a 5-3 loss to Weber State on Feb. 11 and fell to Kansas in a 13-8 decision later that day. Sophomore catcher Jordy Van der Werf achieved a couple of firsts in the second inning against the Wildcats, plating the first three runs of the season with her first career home run.
“Jordy wasn’t behind the plate consistently until the conference tournament last year,” Hayes said. “She finished the weekend in our four-hole and catching … she came out strong.”
In the latter contest, the Braves mounted an early 6-0 lead before the Jayhawks utilized a five-run third inning and a two-run fifth inning to take control of the game. Freshmen Abbott Badgley, Allie Paregien and Shelby Katzakian each drove in runs as part of a strong weekend for the Braves’ newcomers.
The strongest bat of the weekend, however, belonged to senior Camryn Monteer. The infielder stepped up in the final three games of the weekend, collecting four hits combined in the Braves’ split against Northern Colorado and three more hits in a 5-0 loss to Grand Canyon that capped the weekend on Feb. 13.
“My dad always says, ‘Your job is to get on base,’” Monteer said. “So he’s like, ‘go up there and do whatever you can … it doesn’t have to be a hit every time; just get it going for your team.’ I want to set the tone at the beginning of the game. I’m just going up there and trying to give us a shot at scoring in the first inning and jumping on quick.”
Other standouts for the Braves included senior Samantha Smith, who collected four hits in the five-game stretch, and sophomore Camryn Schaller, who pitched 10.2 innings and was credited with the win against the Bears.
The road trip was Bradley’s first trip out west since the 2020 season when they played tournaments in New Mexico and California before the season was shortened after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the pandemic limited the Braves to just one tournament last season — the Buccaneer Classic hosted by East Tennessee State — the scheduling landscape is back to normal in 2022.
“It’s so much fun to be back to traveling at these amazing colleges,” Monteer said. “I think that the freshmen had a lot of fun and yeah, they were probably nervous, but it was a good weekend to get it going for them and it was a lot of fun to be back out there.”
