USC’s Kendal Harpestad beats the throw to home plate to score the Rebels’ fifth run of the game.

The United South Central Rebels opened the 2024 softball season with a 6-3 victory over the Maple River Eagles on Thursday, April 4.

“Obviously, I am happy to get the win and we played OK overall,” USC coach Todd Schmidtke said after the game. “Mariah (Anderson) threw the ball well and struck out a lot of girls but she threw more pitches than I would like to see. We had some errors and we need to improve our fielding. It was the first game of the season and we should improve as the season progresses.”

The game, which was supposed to be played in Wells, had to be moved to Mapleton because of wet field conditions on USC’s softball diamond. However, USC was still the home team on the scoreboard.

The Rebels got on the board first when lead-off batter Anderson walked, stole second base, advanced to third base on a wild pitch and scored on a double by Taylor Schroeder.

The Eagles tied the score at 1-1 in the top of the second inning when Addison Frank walked, went to second base on a wild pitch, stole third base and scored on an error by the Rebels.

USC scored four runs in the bottom of the third inning to go on top 5-1 and take control of the game.

Brylee Neubauer and Schroeder each walked to start off the inning. Olivia Bungum hit a sacrifice bunt to move both runners up a base.

Neubauer scored on a fielder’s choice when Maple River attempted to throw Neubauer out on Lily Lutteke’s infield grounder. Schroeder scored when the Eagles committed an error on Kendal Harpestad’s ground ball.

Later, Lutteke and Harpestad scored on an RBI single by Alivia Bruegger.

The Rebels added one more run in the bottom of the fourth while the Eagles added single runs in the fifth and seventh innings.

Anderson pitched all seven innings and struck out 18 batters. She allowed one hit and walked six batters. She allowed three runs but only one was earned. USC committed four errors.

Schroeder, Harpestad, Lutteke and Bruegger each had one hit for the Rebels with Bruegger getting credit for batting in two runs.

USC traveled to Cleveland on Saturday, April 6, to compete in a tournament where they will play Nicollet and Cleveland.