Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm Cathedral’s Megan Haala connects for a hit in the seventh inning of Thursday’s Class A State Softball game with Moose Lake/Willow River.

NORTH MANKATO — While suffering a state tournament loss can be dejecting to any team, it didn’t impact the New Ulm Cathedral Greyhounds’ performance Thursday night.

After a loss to Moose Lake/Willow River earlier on Thursday at Caswell Park dropped the Greyhounds to the consolation semifinals later in the night, the Greyhounds fired on all cylinders to roll by Menahga 10-0 in five innings.

The win moved the Greyhounds on to the consolation championship game, which takes place at 1:30 p.m. Friday at Caswell Park. They will play on Field 5 against Randolph.

“I think everybody knew we didn’t play our best the first game,” Greyhounds head coach Jamie Kuehn said. “We wanted to come out here and really show people what we were made of and the second game was more indicative of that.”

The Greyhounds scored four runs in the second inning, led by a bases-loaded double by Kiah Helget to score two. Lily Brennan then hit a grounder to short before a throwing error to first allowed two more runs to score.

Madelyn Haala singled in another run in the third for the Greyhounds as their pitcher Megan Haala rolled from the circle, retiring eight in a row at one point.

Megan Haala ended up earning the five-inning win, allowing just two hits and no walks while striking out seven.

“I think she takes losses personally and comes back and wants to make sure that it doesn’t happen again,” Kuehn said of Megan Haala. “It’s her senior year, she wants to go out with a bang and she’s doing everything she can to make sure that happens.”

The Greyhounds broke the game open in a five-run fifth inning that started on a two-run single by Jenna Hotovec. Sydnee Helget singled in Hotovec to keep the inning going and put her squad up 8-0.

The inning was capped off on an Alexa Hornick homer, further energizing the Greyhounds and putting them up 10-0.

Kiah Helget and Hornick each went 2 for 3 in the win.