Cathedral put up its eight runs in the second inning of the game, recording three hits and taking advantage of three walks and two errors.

“It gives us a little cushion and allows us to play with a little more freedom,” Cathedral head coach Jamie Kuehn said. “I wish we could have tacked a few more on, but we’ll take what we can get. They’re a good team, and we knew they were going to come at us with everything they’ve got, so it’s nice to get those eight runs and be able to afford a few errors.”

Jayde Altermatt earned the win for Cathedral, striking out four and allowing three unearned runs on six hits. At the plate, Altermatt had a hit and two RBIs, while Leah Wilson, Abbey Hillesheim and Shay Wilfahrt each had a hit and a run scored.

MLA/C brought a lot of speed on both offense and defense to challenge Cathedral. Center fielder Ellamae Peters chased down and caught multiple balls that were close to being extra-base hits, while both of the Wolverines’ runs came from aggressive baserunning.

Staff photo by Ari Sevley New Ulm Cathedral’s Brynn Wilfahrt (left) and Margo Finstad (right) celebrate after an out during a Section 2A Softball Tournament game against Mountain Lake Area/Comfrey Thursday at Harman Park.

“I thought we did pretty good,” Kuehn said. “This is the first real challenge we’ve had with speed and slappers, so I thought we responded really well to that having not seen it all year. We’re going to see more of it as we go on in playoffs here, so it was a good test for us.”

Wilson recorded a hit to lead off the first inning for the Greyhounds, took to second on a sacrifice bunt by Thea Paszkiewicz and then reached third on an error put into play by Altermatt, but Cathedral was unable to capitalize, leaving two stranded. They made that up in the next inning, however, loading the bases before Morgan Beranek drew a walk to bring home the first run. An error put into play by Wilson and another walks from Paszkiewicz scored two more runs before a two-RBI single from Altermatt made it a 5-0 game. Finstad put another error into play to bring home two more runs, then Shay Wilfahrt collected an RBI on a groundout for an 8-0 lead.

Neither team could score in the third or the fourth, but MLA/C put up a run in the top of the fifth after an errant throw to second went into the outfield, allowing the runner to come all the way home. The Wolverines tacked on another run in the sixth on a passed ball, but the Cathedral defense tightened up, throwing out a runner at third in the seventh to end the game.

Cathedral (21-4) now faces off against seventh-seeded Nicollet in the section quarterfinals Saturday at Caswell Park. The game begins at 10 a.m., and the winner will play at 12 p.m. in the semifinal game. The loser will fall to an elimination bracket game at 12 p.m.

“We need to calm our nerves and get those timely hits when we need them,” Kuehn said. “We left too many runners on base today. And play our best defense.”