GRAND FORKS – An explosive offensive inning and a stellar performance on the mound from Jocelyn Berg allowed Grand Forks Red River to move on in the EDC tournament Thursday. The 10-0 win against Fargo Davies in the quarterfinals at Oxford Sports Complex was emphasized by two home runs from sophomore Ella Nelson after she hadn’t hit one all year. “Ideally we want to win every game in five innings and it took a little bit more to do that today but we were able to get it done,” Red River coach Hannah-Rose Rodriguez said.
Following a single from Taylor Kilgore in the bottom of the second, Nelson was first-pitch swinging and delivered a deep fly to push the Riders out ahead 2-0. In the next ups for Red River, Ella Speidel scored Rylie McQuillan on an RBI double and would later score herself on a past ball. ADVERTISEMENT Sandwiched in between was five consecutive strikeouts from Berg.
The freshman on the mound racked up a total of 13 on the day and only had three baserunners allowed all day. “Jocelyn always has been throwing well and getting strikeouts is her thing. We can’t have big wins without big pitching on the mound,” Rodriguez said.
Nelson walked to lead off the next inning, but a sacrifice fly from Ella Weippert, a bases-loaded walk from McQuillan and Speidel reaching on an error would put four more runs up on the board with the help of some head-first baserunning. In the bottom of the fifth, Nelson led off the inning with her second home run of the day and he.