How could she not? Grady is just a freshman who has been thrust into the varsity lineup at a pretty important position she’s really not familiar with. Mistakes are bound to happen.

But for one night anyway Grady was pretty darned spectacular on Friday, as the Hawks’ starting shortstop made a handful of nice plays and sparked a big seventh inning with her bat in a 10-1 flattening of Greene County in Heart of Iowa Conference play.

“This game was very key for Kenzy,” McMaken said. “She’s got a lot of learning to do because she’s basically been a catcher most of her life, so we’re sticking her out at a position she’s really not comfortable with. But she’s growing into it, she listens well and she’s very coachable. I think she’s going to help this team a lot over the course of the year.”

Grady ignited a seven-run seven with a lead-off single to center and she returned to the plate later in the frame and roped a RBI single to right. South Hamilton (2-1, 1-0 HOIC) owned a 3-1 lead after six, but once it returned to the field in the seventh it was essentially over.

South Hamilton’s Cortney Harris claps while standing on second base following a first-inning RBI double against Greene County on Friday. DFJ photo/Troy Banning

“It felt like once one person started hitting, we all started hitting,” Taylor Volkmann, South Hamilton’s lead-off stick and winning pitcher, said.

Grady helped Volkmann in the field by snagging four pop-ups of the Rams’ bats. Slapper Megan Carey opened the game by hitting a blooper over Grady’s head that appeared destined for shallow left field, but the Hawk rookie made an over-the-shoulder catch on the run — a sign of things to come.

South Hamilton made just one error behind Volkmann, but the senior right-hander did plenty of the heavy lifting herself. With a nasty riseball that was too tempting, Greene County’s bats flailed away unsuccessfully throughout. Volkmann allowed just five hits and struck out 12, including six in a span of seven batters in the first and second innings.

“The riseball, they weren’t really touching that,” Volkmann said.

Volkmann, an all-conference performer in 2017 as a sophomore, missed her entire junior season because of a torn ACL and her absence was noticeable. But the lay-off doesn’t seem to have diminished her talent.

DFJ photo/Troy Banning

“With spring league and everything, that really helped me to prepare for the season, plus pitching lessons throughout the winter,” she said. “So I think I’m pretty comfortable out there.”

McMaken says his job is a little easier when he hands the ball to Volkmann.

“It’s extremely nice having her back,” he said. “Her ball moves well and when she’s on like (on Friday), she’s tough to hit.”

Greene County’s lone run in the sixth was unearned. Carey reached on an error and eventually scored when Jenna Beyers roped a RBI base hit back up the middle.

Trailing 3-1 at the time, the Rams had runners on first and second with just one out, but Volkmann fanned Tieryn Tucker and Lily Muir to end the threat.

DFJ photo/Troy Banning

South Hamilton raced out to a 2-0 edge in the first inning. Cortney Harris sent a two-out laser down the left-field line for a RBI double and she later scored on a passed ball.

The Hawks extended to a 3-0 lead in the third after Breanne Diersen opened with a walk. Sister Hailey Diersen took over on the bases, moved around to third, and scored on a RBI ground-out by Lily Skartvedt.

South Hamilton mustered just one hit in the middle innings off Rams’ hurler Emma Hoyle, but that changed in the seventh. Five of its nine knocks came in the last frame.

“We were hitting it hard and down, and it helped out that they pulled in their infield so we could get it by them,” McMaken said of the seventh-inning flurry. “We really executed in that seventh inning and hitting is contagious. Kenzy leading off with that single really got us started.”

The first five South Hamilton batters reached base in the seventh. Skartvedt drove in her second run, while Krista Swenson and Jessi Harms smacked back-to-back RBI singles in the inning.

DFJ photo/Troy Banning

Harris, Swenson and Grady all went 2 for 4 with an RBI. Breanne Diersen and Emma Lewis added singles.

South Hamilton will travel to Roland on Wednesday to face 14th-ranked (Class 3A) and 2018 state runner-up Roland-Story at 7 p.m.

S. Hamilton 10, Greene County 1

Friday at Jefferson

S. Ham 201 000 7 — 10 9 1

Gr. Cty 000 001 0 — 1 5 3

Taylor Volkmann and Breanne Diersen. Emma Hoyle, Jenna Beyers (7) and Emma Stream. WP — Volkmann. LP — Hoyle. Multiple hits — SH: Cortney Harris, Krista Swenson, Kenzy Grady; GC: Hoyle. 2B — SH: Harris; GC: Stream. RBI — SH: Lily Skartvedt (2), Harris, Swenson, Grady, Jessi Harms; GC: Beyers.