DANE FUELLING
WZBD.com
MAPLES – A rough opening inning for Addie Bacon, who had to adjust to heavy winds blowing across her glove hand and toward the visitors’ dugout, saw the Eastside Blazers score three runs on a pair of walks and a pair of hit batsmen. The lack of a hit, however, was a bad omen for the traditional softball powerhouse from Butler, because the Blazers never found a hit the rest of the night, with Bacon and Hadlee Shipp combining for a no-hit, 7-3 victory at home.
Bacon pitched three more innings, with the second and third frames being clean, 1-2-3 innings. She worked around two more walks in the fourth, but got out of it with a fly out to Shipp, who was in center before taking over in the circle in the fifth.
Shipp walked four, but those were the only four baserunners allowed in her three innings of work.
Heritage did not score until the third inning, when they took the lead thanks, in part, to a key base hit by Shipp. Bacon came up with the bases loaded and Eastside got an out at home, followed by a strikeout, but Audra Bickel drove in two with two outs on an error by the Blazer infield.
Shipp led off the fifth with another single and scored on a double by Sydney Martin, who took third on the throw home, later scoring on a ground out for the 7-3 final margin.
The two hits by Shipp and Martin’s double were the only three hits for either team on a night where the wind was simply treacherous, with dust being kicked up on a rough Heritage infield.
After dropping three in a row in April, the Patriots have now won back-to-back games, allowing just six hits and four runs in those two victories, which pushed the Heritage record to 8-4 in 2026.
The Patriots have a busy week of games, with contests in the ACAC against Woodlan and and Adams Central scheduled, along with non-conference games against Homestead and Norwell (in a doubleheader Saturday).
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