Rachel Kaufman did it all for Seymour High School’s softball team Tuesday afternoon.
At bat she went 4-for-4, with four doubles, drove in three runs and scored two runs to lead the Owls to a 10-0 win over Henryville. The game was called in the bottom of the fifth because of the run rule.
It was Kaufman’s second straight game with four hits.
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In the circle, Kaufman allowed three hits, struck out 10 — two each inning — and didn’t walk any.
Coach Jerry Burton was all smiles when he talks about the kind of season Kaufman is having.
“Rachel has had a great start,” Burton said. “I couldn’t ask for any better. She’s really a nice ball player. She really works hard.”
Kaufman is 11-for-12 through three games. Pitching, she has worked 12 innings and recorded 20 strikeouts, one walk, six hits and one run.
“Rachel is making the type of run you need to make to be first team all-state,” Burton said.”She’s seeing it real well and getting good cuts no matter what the pitching is and she’s doing a nice job of hitting the ball where it’s pitched.”
The Owls sent seven batters to the plate in each of the first two innings to open an 8-0 lead.
In the bottom of the first, Alyssa Perry singled, Kaufman hit a double to score Perry, and Grace Meyer walked. Courtesy runner Chloe Mellencamp scored on a passed ball, and Meyer scored on a wild pitch for a 3-0 lead.
Grace Rennekamp led off the second with a walk and Sydney Stewart singled and was replaced by courtesy runner Ami Nishimaki.
After Perry sacrificed the runners up a base, Kaufman had a double and RBI, Meyer grounded out to score a run, and Stephanni Kleber singled home a run, Carlee Robinson had a triple and RBI, and Camryn Sterling had a double and the final RBI of the inning.
In the bottom of the fifth, Perry singled, Kaufman doubled and Meyer singled to bring in two runs and end the game.
The top six batters in the lineup combined for 11 hits and eight RBIs.
Burton said he liked the way his team is swinging the bats.
“We’ve got a lot of kids that are hitting the ball,” he said. “We’ve got some kids coming off the bench that’s going to hit the ball, so everybody should stay on their toes and expect not to be hitting if they’re not swinging the bat good because we’ve got a lot of depth this year.”
The Hornets had base runners in the second, fourth and fifth innings but Kaufman kept the visitors off the scoreboard.
Alison Horn led off the second inning, with a double over the centerfielder’s head, but she tried to stretch the hit into a triple and was thrown out a third on a relay throw by Perry.
Larissa Smith hit a double with two outs, but Kaufman struck out the next batter.
In the fourth inning, two batters reached first base safely on strike outs-passed balls, and Autumn Osborne doubled with two out in the fifth before the next batter grounded out.
“We made a couple errors on plays we should have made,” Burton said. “Obviously, you want to be perfect but that’s now always going to be the case.”
He said the 3-0 start to 2019 is the kind of start he was expecting.
“We said from the get go that we didn’t want to start the season 0-1, that we wanted to get off to a good start this year, and that’s what we did,” Burton said. “We’ve just got to keep building every game and keep doing what we’re doing.’
“We’ve got to come out (today) and practice and be ready for Silver Creek.”
The Owls will play the Dragons Thursday at Sellersburg.