Maize High School’s softball team brought their bats on Friday.
The Lady Eagles swept a doubleheader against Great Bend at the Great Bend Sports Complex, winning the first game 3-0 and the second, 12-0 in six innings.
“Credit to them because they are a phenomenal ball club,” GBHS head coach Carrie Minton said. “Our girls knew that we were going to have to do everything, that from the first pitch to the last pitch, it was going to be a battle.”
Maize pitcher Brittany Finney, who verbally committed to Oklahoma as a freshman last season when she pitched for Wamego, kept the Lady Panthers (2-2) off-balance throughout the first game. She finished with eight strikeouts, allowing two hits, a single to Bonny Boultinghouse in the third inning and a single for Hunter Middleton in the fifth.
Middleton went seven innings in the circle for Great Bend. She finished with seven strikeouts while scattering nine hits.
“We knew coming in that we were going to have to play at the top of our game in order to compete,” Minton said. “Hunter pitched a great game, and they’re just aggressive hitters. They had a lot of confidence coming into the box, and unfortunately, if you give up the plate just a little bit, they made us pay for it.”
Middleton gave up two home runs, one a two-run blast from Tyler Downs in the top of the second and the other a solo shot from Ali Jurgensen in the top of the fourth.
Great Bend pitcher Braylin Bretz went all six innings in the  second game.
The Lady Eagles got to Bretz early, with Finney striking a towering home run over the center-field wall in the top of the first.
“Both girls threw great games,” Minton said. “It was just a few mistakes here and there. Against most teams, an average team, you can get away with a few mistakes, leaving the ball over the plate a little bit, but with a team like Maize, they’re going to take advantage of it because they are on top of every pitch.”
In the top of the second, Maize sent 12 batters to the plate and took a 7-0 lead, taking advantage of a pair of Great Bend errors.
“They put the ball in play and they hit the ball very hard,” Minton said. “Unfortunately, we had a couple of errors. We’re a young team, but we’re an experienced team.
“We hope to learn from it, because we kind of hung our heads just a little bit and started to let a little bit of it get to us more than it should have.”
Great Bend hosts Dodge City on Tuesday. The Western Athletic Conference doubleheader starts at 4 p.m.

HIGH SCHOOL SOFTBALL
Non-Conference

At Great Bend
Sports Complex

Friday

Game 1
Maize 3, Great Bend 0
                      123   456   7          R    H    E
Maize             020   100   0   —    3    9    0
Great Bend    000   000   0   —    0    2    0
     Brittany Finney & Lexi Eisenbart; Hannah Middleton & Hannah Mauler. W — Finney. L — Middleton (1-1). HR — Maize (Tyler Downs, Ali Jurgensen).

Game 2
Maize 12, Great Bend 0
                      123   456            R      H     E
Maize             160   104   —     12    15    1
Great Bend    000   000   —      0      3     4
     Meghan Grimes & Eisenbart; Braylin Bretz & Dakota Sanders. W — Grimes. L — Bretz (1-1). 2B — Maize (Jurgensen). HR — Maize (Finney).