Going against a defending state champion can be intimidating. Entering the doubleheader Friday night, the team was aware of the talent the opposing team had. Starting off with a 1-0 start, Seaman quickly closed the gap and beat Manhattan High 12-1 in the first game of the double header and 11-0 the second game.

“The ball [Seaman] played was different from anything we’ve seen this year,” sophomore Haleigh Harper said. “We weren’t used to the hits they were putting out on the field and hits we were getting last game would be fielded when we played Seaman.”

Hitting seemed to be the main struggle for the Lady Indians.

“It was tough for us to string together hits because here and there we would make good contact, but they just seemed to be able to get hits every single inning,” junior Josie Hilgers said. “We just dug ourselves a hole, but I think it’s good for us to face that early in the season so when we face other good teams like Washburn we’ll be able to fix some of our errors.”

In preparation for the game, the team focused on their defense.

“We knew that they would be good hitters, so in practice we took some hard ground balls,” Harper said. “We also started speeding up the pitching machine and hitting live off of coaches because we knew the pitching we were going up against would be different from what we saw last week.”

Seeking improvement for games later in the week, the team is hoping to advance their play in all areas of the game.

“I think that there are improvements that need to be made in all aspects of the game,” Hilgers said. “Our fielding we need to eliminate the errors that we don’t usually make in practice.”

In addition, offensive plays are needed in order to achieve victory.

“We just need to be more resilient on offense,” junior Raegan Wilcoxson said. “With that we can make up for the runs that we give up on defense.”

The Lady Indians will face Washburn Rural on April 14 at Anneberg Park.