Softball: A Senior Night shutout

• Photo: Out at home

Farmington’s Aleah Williamson gets tagged out at the plate early on in last week’s game against Red Wing. Williamson hit her second home run of the season as the Tigers won, 3-0, on Senior Night.

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The Farmington softball team extended its streak of .500 or better regular seasons by shutting out Red Wing 3-0 on its Senior Night Thursday.

The Tigers (10-10) closed out the regular season with an 8-5 loss in a make-up game Friday at Lakeville North, then earned another home game by being named No. 4 in the Section 1AAA Tournament.

Farmington will open section play Wednesday afternoon against No. 5 Northfield, a team they split with during Missota Conference play. Results will appear in next week’s edition of the Independent.

“I feel like we keep getting better, but now the season is coming to a close,” said Farmington coach Rob Laden, whose team has won six of its last nine games. “I hope we can bring it all into sections.”

Lakeville South 8,

Farmington 5

The Cougars scored three runs on three errors in a sixth inning that ended up being the difference in Friday’s regular season finale in Lakeville.

The Tigers trailed 3-0 early, but got one back in the fourth when Dani Muelken singled and scored on Toni Hunsinger’s double. RBI singles by Hagen and Taylor Haakana kept the visitors within 5-3 heading into the error-filled bottom of the sixth.

The Tigers put together one last rally in the seventh. Hagen and Betzold opened with singles, and both came around to score on a Hunsinger single. Two more runners reached to load the bases with two outs, but Paige Lindrud’s fly ball was caught just shy of the fence to end the game.

“The Tigers played hard all game and never gave up,” Laden said. “They were not intimidated at all by South. Our downfall this year has been having an inning or two with lots of errors and we had one of those against South again.”

Farmington 3,

Red Wing 0

Betzold scattered six Red Wing hits and struck out eight en route to her fourth shutout of the season Thursday afternoon.

Farmington got all the offense it needed in the fifth when Alyssa Kalmes and Allie Rice hit back-to-back doubles to make it 1-0. Kalmes added an RBI double in the sixth and Aleah Williamson blasted her second home run of the season to make it 3-0.

It was the final regular season home game for seniors Hagen, Muelken and Lindrud.

“I told the underclassmen to make sure they played their best for the seniors,” Laden said.

The Tigers finished tied with New Prague for fourth in the Missota Conference standings with a record of 7-7.

Tags: sports, farmington, tigers, prep, softball