WEST MILTON — In their second scrimmage of 2023 on Tuesday the Northmont varsity softball team rallied to score a 13-9 victory (unofficial score) over Milton-Union.

There was some debate over what the scoreboard displayed as opposed to the actual score.

The Lady Bolts surrendered a pair of home runs but came up strong with timely hitting in the final two innings to earn the victory.

Northmont rotated 13 of its players into the game.

Freshman Jadyn Johnson started the game on the mound and had good velocity on her pitches. Junior Zoey Hodge came in late and kept Milton-Union in check with solid pitching.

Northmont coach Kris Mangen referred to the scrimmage as a glorified practice, but on actual dirt instead of inside a gymnasium where realistic playing conditions are impossible to produce. Mangen enters her 27th season as coach of the Lady Bolts with a career record of 550-184.

“We kind of need to learn quickly from our mistakes. Like our coaches said, we kind of have to play with a little bit of urgency,” Mangen said.

The reason for that statement is that this year will be the first time the team will be heading to Florida on spring break since 2019. The Covid outbreak shut spring sports down in 2020 and since then paranoia has reigned.

When the Lady Bolts play in Florida at Fort Walton Beach this year they will be facing Sunshine State teams that already have 20 games under their collective belts. In their six spring break games Northmont will be playing five Florida teams.

Florida teams have been playing on dirt versus practicing inside, like teams from the north are forced to do, so that puts Northmont at a distinct disadvantage.

Nevertheless, the Lady Bolts have won at least three of their five games in Florida most years and in some cases four of five or four of six.

“Right now, were are on a trend of waiting until the third or fourth inning when we start hitting better and doing better in the field. We need to start off strong and play a complete seven innings,” Mangen said. “Physical mistakes are fine, but sometimes we make some mental mistakes that varsity players shouldn’t be making.”

She stressed that her players need to know where the next play is going and learn from their mistakes and keep supporting each other.

“I think we are going to be a good team. We just have to learn quickly because some of the teams we will be playing already have 20-plus games in,” Mangen said. “Hopefully we will be able to get our other scrimmage in and that would give us five days on dirt.”

Northmont had two days of practice on dirt and a pair scrimmages, one with Troy and one at Milton-Union. A third scrimmage with Greenville was cancelled due to rain.

“I am just happy that we are able to go back to Florida since we haven’t been back since 2019 due to Covid,” Mangen stated. “Our parents and our boosters have put a lot of time and fundraising in to make this trip happen.

“This group of kids has never experienced it, so this is new to all of them unless they had a sibling on the team that went through the program,” Mangen said.

“This has been a long time in the making thanks to our parents and boosters. We are just excited to be able to make the trip again and hopefully we will have an advantage over the teams that are playing here because they might be playing in snow while we are gone. You never know.”

In addition to Jadyn Johnson, the Lady Bolts other freshman player is Lacie Knick, who placed second in the state in wrestling in her weight class this year.

Knick started in right field and played catcher against Milton-Union as well.

“Johnson and Knick are going to be talented players for our program in the future, and they are talented right now,” Mangen added.

Reach Ron Nunnari at (937) 684-9124 or email [email protected].