By Dee Grenert Sports Editor
PLYMOUTH — Every team wants to excel on Senior Day. Plymouth's softball team took that mission to the extreme.
All nine players in Plymouth’s Senior Day batting lineup — including the Pilgrims’ five seniors — contributed at least one hit and an RBI in an 18-0 five-inning Northern Lakes Conference win over visiting NorthWood Monday.
Plymouth, which rapped out 14 hits altogether, sent 11 batters to the dish in the third inning, and 14 more in the fourth against a team that knocked off the Pilgrims just 17 days earlier.

“To come out and win 18-0 on Senior Day, I’m happy, absolutely,” Plymouth head coach Ed Kelso said. “Each one had a hit and an RBI, if I’m not mistaken. You generally don’t go anywhere without contributions from your seniors. They played well today. Hopefully, they’ll continue to contribute over the next two weeks.”
Plymouth senior second baseman Olivia Keilman finished 3-for-3 with four RBI, including a run-scoring single in the first inning, senior Stacy Vervynckt added three more hits, scored three times and drove home a run and classmate Jessica Centa socked one of the Pilgrims’ two three-run triples. Seniors Kelsey Millea and Katelyn Burger both clubbed RBI singles as well.
Junior Brittney Tremaine smacked a pair of hits — among them a bases-clearing three-run three-sacker during Plymouth’s six-run third. Leadoff hitter Mary Byelick knocked in a couple of runs, including a bases-loaded beanball off her back in the nine-run fourth.
On the mound, Plymouth sophomore Ashleah Wheat twirled a one-hit shutout, fanning six, and walking none. She also hit a batter. Wheat started the game in fine fashion, striking out the side on 11 pitches.
“That was huge,” Kelso said of the top of the first. “I’m not sure she’d struck out the side this year. She set the tone right off. We scratched out a run in the first inning, added a couple more, and then the floodgates opened up.”
Plymouth did indeed scratch — in every sense of the word — across a run in the first. Centa struck out swinging on a pitch in the dirt, but wheeled all the way to second when the NorthWood catcher threw the ball into right field. She advanced to third — past a lunging tag attempt — on a groundout to short and scored on Keilman’s hard chopper through the left side.
In the second frame, Tremaine led off with a solid single, followed by a shallow pop to left field off Vervynckt’s bat. With NorthWood’s outfield playing in another zip code, the ball dropped safely — the first of multiple Plymouth fly balls to fall in front of NorthWood outfielders.
“I told them in the second inning, ‘Please take a look at where they’re playing in the outfield,’” Kelso said. “I told them if they bloop one in to be thinking about two bases. Our runners did a good job of holding and waiting until they knew it was going to drop. The outfielders were playing waaaay out there.”
After a fielder’s choice forced Tremaine at third, Byelick singled home Veryvnckt with a shot through the left side and Riley Repp touched the plate on a passed ball to put the Pilgrims up 3-0.
Plymouth tacked on six more runs on three hits in the third. NorthWood starter Alyssa Bates walked the bases loaded to start the inning, and Tremaine promptly unloaded them with a screaming line drive into the right-center gap. Vervynckt — Plymouth’s No. 8 hitter — knocked her home with another Texas Leaguer.
“We told the girls to have a day and (Vervynckt) did,” Kelso said. “She had a good day.”
Keilman, who opened the third with a base on balls, delivered a two-run single to polish off the third and put the Pilgrims up 9-0.
In the fourth, Plymouth doubled its run total, highlighted by the left-handed slugger Centa’s three-run rocket into the right-center field gap.
“Hopefully we’ll see that several more times,” Kelso said of Plymouth’s two three-run three-baggers. “The girls did a good job. They knew we owed them one.”
Also in the fourth inning, Byelick took a run-scoring one for the team ahead of Centa’s triple, Lyzz Smith singled home a run, Keilman collected an RBI bloop double and Millea, Burger and Repp all chipped in run-scoring singles.
The Panthers’ lone hit came on Emily Priest’s leadoff single down the first base line to lead off the fourth. A hit batter and error loaded the bases with one out, but Wheat worked out of the jam with a strikeout and soft grounder to the pitcher’s circle.
Plymouth heads to Northridge Wednesday.
• PLYMOUTH 18,
  NORTHWOOD 0
At Plymouth
NorthWood: 0 0 0   0 0 —  0   1   1
Plymouth:    1 2 6   9 x — 18  14  3
Alyssa Bates (L), Sam Hall (3) and Briana Yoder, Angela Fahlbeck (4); Ashleah Wheat (W) and Jessica Centa.
2B: Olivia Keilman (P).
3B: Brittney Tremaine (P), Centa (P).
Records: Plymouth 9-12 (4-9 NLC), NorthWood 3-15 (1-9 NLC).