Staff photo by Steve Muscatello New Ulm Cathedral’s Sarah Mohr drives a pitch during the Greyhounds win against Cleveland Monday at Harman Park in New Ulm.

NEW ULM — With an explosive offense and a solid defense behind her, New Ulm Cathedral’s Josie Pautzke pitched a five-inning no-hitter against Cleveland, the Valley Conference champions, on Monday.

That led the Greyhounds (15-2) to a big 10-0 win over the Clippers (10-4) in five innings of nonconference softball action at Harman Park.

“I don’t think you can ask anything more of your pitcher,” Cathedral co-head coach Jamie Portner said. “She made up for her teammates’ errors [two errors] and her team made plays, too, which is what you want from your pitcher. She’s not really a strikeout pitcher, but she’ll make plays, and our team rises to the occasion.”

Pautzke had six strikeouts, allowed no walks and only let two of her pitches make it out of the infield.

Cathedral co-head coach Bob Mertz was equally impressed by Pautzke’s performance.

“Josie threw a really good game, one the best game’s she’s thrown all year,” Mertz said.

The Tomahawk Conference champions started out for two runs in the first inning after a trio of singles from Sarah Mohr, Jenna Helget and Pautzke led off the inning. Rose Hazuka then reached on an error, and Mohr ended up scoring the Greyhounds’ first run.

After another error on a drop in center field, the second run crossed the plate to give Cathedral the 2-0 advantage after one inning.

Cleveland committed five errors total during the game.

The Greyhounds added another three hits and scored four more runs in the second, with an RBI double by Mohr and a two-run single by Hazuka highlighting the inning. A four-run fourth inning by the Greyhounds then helped end things early.

After Helget and Pautzke started the fourth inning off on back-to-back singles, Hazuka added an RBI double to score Helget.

Abby Furth, pinch-running for Pautzke, scored next on a wild pitch by Cleveland starting pitcher, Joie Weller. Lauryn Franta then stepped up and drove a two-run homer to left for a 10-0 Greyhounds lead.

“That felt really good,” Franta said of her two-run blast in the fourth.

“It’s been awhile. So it definitely helped us, and it builds confidence.”

Helget led the Greyhounds with a 3-for-3 day at the plate, while Hazuka had two hits and four RBIs.

The Greyhounds are the No. 2 seed in the Section 2A playoffs this year and could end up meeting Cleveland again shortly. Cathedral will host the winner of Tuesday’s Madelia vs. Mountain Lake Area/Comfrey matchup at 5 p.m. on Thursday, while Cleveland hosts the winner of Tuesday’s Nicollet vs. Granada-Huntley-East Chain/Martin Luther/Truman game on Thursday.

Should the Greyhounds and Clippers both win on Thursday, the two squads will meet again at 10 a.m. on Saturday at Caswell Park. Mertz said that despite the outcome Monday, he knows that if the two teams do indeed meet again on Saturday, it will be a different game with the stakes being higher.

“It’ll be a different game,” Mertz said. “There’ll be a little bit more pressure on it. But you can tell [the Clippers] were very tight here. They’ll be a little bit more loose, more prepared. They won the conference over there, they’re not a bad team, but we took advantage of some of their mistakes and that’s what good teams do. It’s a booster for us, too. We know that we can handle it.”