Photo by Sam Thiel Marshall’s Aubrey Bjella connects for a base hit during their game against Hutchinson on Friday. Marshall fell to Hutchinson 10-6.

MARSHALL — The Marshall softball team came back home on Friday afternoon looking to snap a three-game skid. Meanwhile their opponent, Hutchinson, was fresh off a strong offensive outing against Mound Westonka the day before in which it saw 16 runs come across.

Marshall was able to go toe-to-toe with Hutchinson, but Hutch was able to have an answer for each MHS run and never gave up its lead en route to a 10-6 victory.

After a scoreless first frame, Hutchinson struck first in the top half of the second, using a pair of singles to take a 1-0 lead before adding two more runs the next at-bat thanks to an error, double, RBI single and a sacrifice to push its lead to 3-0. They weren’t done there, though, capitalizing on a couple of errors with two outs in the top of the fourth to push their advantage to 4-0.

Marshall was quick to respond, though, as Regan Loft and Ashleigh Steinbach connected on back-to-back singles to start the bottom of the inning before Leah Schaefer smacked an RBI double to get MHS on the board. Marshall then plated another run on a stolen base and an error to make it 4-2, but Hutchinson answered with a double and three Marshall errors to score three more runs and push its lead to 7-2 in the fifth.

Marshall responded again with a one-out rally in the bottom of the fifth. Taylor Ariasola and Brenna Springborg connected on consecutive base hits before Steinbach brought in a run on a fielder’s choice to make it 7-3, but once again, Hutchinson was right there for the timely answer, loading the bases twice in the sixth and scoring three runs to extend its advantage to 10-3.

Marshall kept fighting, however, as Schaefer led off the bottom half of the sixth with a double before Aubrey Bjella smacked an RBI single to make it 10-4. MHS would get a couple more runs across in the final two innings, but couldn’t draw any closer as Hutchinson held on for the 10-6 victory.

Schaefer led Marshall with two hits and an RBI while Steinbach and Bjella each had a hit and an RBI and Loft, Ariasola and Springborg each had a hit.

Olivia Houseman took the loss in the circle, going 4 2/3 innings while allowing seven runs on eight hits and struck out one.

Up next

Marshall (2-5) will host New Ulm on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.