​Hemme strikes out 12 to help Eagles roll past Truman 5-0

by Michael Smith  

         
Grain Valley head softball coach Flip Courter said he would have never imagined going the way it has so far in 2024.

And that’s a good thing.

The Eagles came into Tuesday’s Suburban White Conference matchup with Truman as the No. 1-ranked team in Class 5 with a 20-0 record.

They have the rare luxury of having three caliber starting pitchers they can use in any game – Makenna Moore, Molly Jones and Tuesday’s starter, Sydney Hemme. The pitching for Grain Valley has been dominant, as the Eagles had only surrendered 19 runs coming in.

That continued against the Patriots as Hemme tossed a one-hitter, had no walks, and struck out 12 batters during a 5-0 victory on the road.

Truman’s lone hit was on an infield single from Victoria Schearer in the fourth inning. The only other base runner from the home team came because of an infield error for the Eagles in the first. Other than that, Grain Valley continued its dominance that it’s had all season.

“I don’t know if anyone goes into a season thinking they will be unbeaten a month into the season,” Courter said. “We’ve beat some darn good teams like Ray-Pec, Blue Springs South and Kickapoo. I was looking at the rankings, we have beat eight state-ranked teams.

“These girls never think they are out of the game. They step on the field expecting to win. I knew we were going to be good.”

Added Hemme: “I grew up watching Grain Valley softball since my sister played for four years before me. We have always been a good organization overall, but to be 21-0 and beat teams like Ray-Pec and Blue Springs South, I have to give credit to Makenna Moore. She has pitched a dominant season.”

Truman couldn’t get hard contact off Hemme all game as her pitch mix of a fastball, changeup, screwball and rise ball. Hemme got a lot of swing and misses high in the zone on the rise ball and her screwball ran in on the hands of right-handed batters, which produced weak contact.

“Her screwball looks like it’s going right down the middle of the plate then it comes in on your hands,” Courter said of Hemme. “She threw with a little more (velocity) today. We watched her in the bullpen, and you could hear the pop of the glove.”

Hemme said the screwball was the first pitch she mastered when she first started playing softball.

“It was the pitch I could catch onto easy,” she said. “It just became my most dominant pitch from there.”

Grain Valley’s offense struggled to get going in the first five innings as they had four base runners and just two hits in that span but couldn’t scratch across a run against starting pitcher Piper Fatool. The Eagles (21-0, 9-0 conference) finally broke through in the sixth inning as Sydnee Wagner found a hole up the middle for a single and Sal Haley reached on a dropped fly ball to left field.

Moore followed up by floating an RBI single in the left-center field gap to get the scoring going. After catcher Olivia Slaughter walked, sophomore Molly Jones got the biggest hit of the game as she stroked a bases-clearing double down the left field line to make it 4-0.

“Their pitcher was moving around the zone a little bit,” Jones said. “She didn’t have a lot of spin pitches. We were kind of just getting under it. We started barreling the ball up in the middle of the game.”

Wagner added an insurance run in the seventh inning with a sacrifice fly to left field that scored sophomore Madison Rust from third base.
 

Grain Valley junior pitcher Sydney Hemme, left, allowed just one hit and 12 batters while Molly Jones had a big bases-clearing double in the sixth inning as Grain Valley defeated Truman 5-0 to improve to 21-0 on the season. Photo credit: Michael Smith