A combination of strikeouts and errors led to Freedom’s 6-0 loss to Parkland last Tuesday at Freedom.

“We just didn’t hit today, and I think we had five errors,” said Patriot coach Michele Laubach. “You can’t strike out that many times and have five errors on the field.”

The Pates struck out eight times in the first three innings while the Trojans scored three runs.

In the top of the fourth, Parkland third baseman Madison Konapelsky hit a home run that Freedom left fielder Natalie Stannard tried to catch. Stannard fell over the mesh fencing, and as a precaution, was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital.

“I told the girls their teammate was talking, and she was OK, and we’re definitely going to keep her on our minds, and we want to find out how she’s doing as soon as we can,” Laubach told her team before play resumed. “She was in good hands and getting taken care of.”

Stannard is, in fact, OK, and could return to action this week.

The Trojans scored two more runs in the fourth on another homer by Konapelsky.

In the bottom of the fifth, Abby Husser reached first base on an error, and Corrin Gill had a hard hit to left field that was caught by Morgan Stay. Brenna Ortwein doubled to right field, but Freedom’s next two batters struck out.

“Certainly as coaches we’re going to regroup and do what we need to do, but when defense falls apart and you’re striking out, we’ve got to get something to motivate us,” Laubach said. “We should be peaking now, but I think we started too high and now we’re down a little, so we need to climb back up the mountain a little bit here and take off into EPC’s and playoffs.”

Last Tuesday was the second time the Patriots and Trojans met but the first time their meeting counted toward league seeding. Freedom won the first contest between the two teams, but it was considered a nonconference game.

“We kind of started off on a high note with the beginning of our season. We’re a senior-laden team, we have kids who’ve been four-year starters, three-year starters on varsity, and I think a lot will need to be internal motivation from them,” Laubach said.