CHS softball team starts second half of season 1-3.

Columbia blew a 13-10 lead, yielding eight runs in the fifth inning.

It was a tough loss for the Bruins, who had their biggest ofÿfensive game of the year. They belted 17 hits, eight for extra bases.

Sophomore Mallory Holtman led the way, going 4 for 5 with a pair of doubles and a triple, and two runs batted in. Sophomore Crystal Blanÿkenship drove in five runs with three hits that included a home run and a triple.

Columbia also got a two-run

triple from freshman Krista Bakke.

Wahtonka, which also had 17 hits, capitalized on 16 free passes to first and seven CHS errors to come from behind.

"If you add all those numbers up, they equal a loss," Bruins Coach Scott Ross noted. "We should've put them away like we did in the second game. We just didn't make some defensive plays (in the fifth inning)."

In the nightcap, Columbia got a gem of a pitching performance from Holtman. She allowed two hits and walked three in a 10-0, five-inning shutout.

"With Mallory pitching as well as she did, and with Crystal (Blanÿkenship) behind the plate, they didn't generate much offense," Ross said. "And we played much

better defensively, with only one error."

At the dish, senior Jennie Mansÿfield went 3 for 4 (5 for 8 on the day), knocked in a run and scored three to spark the Bruins' 10-hit effort.

Holtman added a two-run triple to aid her own cause. Sophomore Bobbi Ziegler contributed with two hits -- a double and a triple -- and drove in a run.

"The only thing I was really disappointed with was, we left 11 runners on base," Ross said. "Other than that, we probably played our best game of the season in all facets."

Castle Rock 9-8, at Columbia 0-0 --

Rockets pitchers held the Bruins to seven hits during Friday's Trico League double-header.

Columbia had just one hit in game one against Castle Rock ace Megan Borgard. She faced 19 batÿters -- one over the minimum -- and struck out 11 of them.

In game two, the Bruins had six hits (two less than the Rockets) but left five runners on base.

The game ended after five inÿnings under the league's eight-run mercy rule. Game one went six.

"I thought we competed well in both games. Our pitching was pretÿty good, and our outfielders did a good job of holding their girls to one base," Ross noted. "We just had an inning in each game where things got away from us."

In game one it was the sixth inning, when the Rockets exploded for five runs. It was a five-run fifth in game two.

"We just made some bad deciÿsions in those two innings that got us into trouble," Ross said.