Comets get back on winning track with shutout softball victory over Chickasaws

By John Burbridge

sports@charlescitypress.com

CHARLES CITY — Pitched perfect games are rare occurrences.

But at the high school softball level, they tend to happen at a slightly higher frequency due to one-sided games being shortened to four or five innings.

Thursday’s Northeast Iowa Conference game between the New Hampton Chickasaws and the Charles City Comets almost resulted in a full-size perfect game when Comet freshman southpaw ace Addison Ellis took a perfect game into the seventh inning with her team leading 2-0.

After retiring the first batter, Ellis gave up a solid single to her counterpart, junior Chloe Weigel, who got as far as second base on an infield out before Ellis closed the door with her ninth strikeout of the game for the near-perfect victory.

The game, which took less than 90 minutes to complete, was scoreless through two-and-a-half innings before Ellis’s sacrifice fly scored senior Mya Rimrod, who previously singled.

The Comets scored an insurance run in the bottom of the sixth inning with eighth-grader Lexan Joslin sending senior Payton Hadley home with a sacrifice fly hit deep to left-centerfield.

Charles City leadoff hitter Emerson Bohlen had two hits; and Hadley, Rimrod and senior Brooklyn Molitor got on base twice with each recording a hit and drawing a walk.

The win halted a four-game skid for the Comets — Ellis didn’t pitch during the string of losses — while improving Charles City’s record to 3-4 and 1-0 in the NEIC.

New Hampton fell to 2-2 and 0-1.

Charles City is scheduled to play in the two-day North Fayette Valley Invite with Friday games against NFV (9 a.m.) and Sumner-Fredericksburg (12:30 p.m.), and Saturday games against MFL MarMac (2:15 p.m.) and Beckman Catholic (4 p.m.).