Prep Athlete of the Week: Katie Hinz, Central

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (Wyoming News Now) - The Lady Indians softball team recorded a doubleheader sweep against Laramie over the weekend, and in the first leg Katie Hinz was wheeling and dealing on the bump.

Lady Plainsmen hitters had trouble all game even making contact with the ball, and as the game progressed Hinz ended up losing track of her strikeout count because she was too focused on closing out the win.

”I was kind of aware until the fourth inning because at that point they hadn’t even hit a foul ball. I don’t know exactly what inning it was in, but they did have a couple good hits here and there. That’s when I kind of just stopped counting because I needed to focus on getting them out and stuff like that. So my mind kind of trailed away from how I was doing,” Hinz said.

She ended the game with 17 strikeouts en route to a 4-3 Central victory. While her pitching was masterful, she was also effective at the plate going 2-3 in the contest.

The previous weekend Central went 1-2 combined against two top teams in Campbell County and Thunder Basin, but Hinz said that the test was good for the team. She believes that the early progression they’ve already shown against Laramie will make them dangerous for the rest of the season.

”I think it was almost a wake up call. We call it a ‘rust buster’ is what we’ve been joking about it on the team. Obviously [Campbell and Thunder are] not the easiest two teams to play right out of the gate, but we were all happy to play them right out of the gate just to see where we were at. I think a lot of people counted us down after who we lost last year, but I think we got the message across even then [to not] count us out this year,” Hinz said.

Congratulations to Katie Hinz on her dominant performance.

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