WARDSVILLE - Every time the Blair Oaks Lady Falcons scored Saturday, the Troy-Buchanan Trojans had an answer.
But they couldn't answer Blair Oaks' four-run outburst in the bottom of the fifth inning.
"I think that statement was huge, just having an answer for when they did respond to us getting runs on the board," Blair Oaks coach Sharon Buschjost said after the Lady Falcons' 7-3 win at the Falcon Athletic Complex.
Last season, Alexis Findley pitched a one-hitter for the Lady Falcons in a 3-1 loss to Troy-Buchanan, which went on to take second place in the Class 4 state tournament.
"I told them to approach this today as a postseason game," Buschjost said, "with an atmosphere of intensity and a great team coming to our place. I wanted to see what we do with it."
On Saturday, Andi Siebeneck got her turn against the Trojans, pitching a complete game with four strikeouts and one walk.
"As we approach the season with pitching, we are looking for games to use both of them," Buschjost said of Findley and Siebeneck. " We were tempted to try the two-pitcher combination there, but we decided to just go with Andi and leave her in for the finish."
Kathleen Groner put Blair Oaks ahead with an RBI single up the middle, scoring courtesy runner Lauren Strange to give the Lady Falcons a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning.
"That was an 0-2 pitch," Buschjost said. "She hit a pitch that she liked. That was just the beginning of a really big day for her."
Troy-Buchanan tied the score the following inning with an RBI single by Kim DeBold. The Trojans scored all their runs on two-out rallies that started with the bases empty.
"We had one inning where we gave them a few extra outs," Buschjost said. "Good teams are going to do something with that, and they did."
In the bottom of the fourth, Andi Siebeneck hit a leadoff triple to right field. Two batters later, Groner crushed a two-run home run to left field with the wind blowing in. The homer was the second of the season for the Lady Falcons, who regained the lead 3-1.
"I was trying to pull Lauren Strange back at third base, getting her to tag up," Buschjost said. "She knew it was going out, but I knew the wind was also working against some of the balls that got up in the air. Kathleen hit that ball hard enough that the wind didn't matter."
But again, back came the Trojans. Natalie Sullivan, who scored Troy-Buchanan's first run, added a two-run double down the left-field line in the fifth, tying the score at 3.
In the bottom half of the inning, Blair Oaks made sure it put the game out of reach.
With the bases loaded, Findley lined a single back up the middle off relief pitcher Makayla Bryant to score Ellie Kliethermes and Natalie Otto.
"She's the leading hitter on the team right now," Buschjost said of Findley, who is batting .571 through the Lady Falcons' first four games. "She works hard on hitting the ball back up the middle."
Groner added an RBI single later in the inning - her fourth run driven in of the game - and pinch-hitter Kaitlyn Luebbering blooped an RBI single down the right-field line to make the score 7-3.
"That's the exciting part about this team right now," Buschjost said. "I've been real happy with the at-bats that they're all taking. They're quality at-bats, whether they're ahead in the count or behind in the count."
Siebeneck shut down the Trojans the rest of the way, making sure there wasn't a third comeback. The Lady Falcons turned a double play in the sixth inning and Siebeneck struck out the last two batters she faced in the seventh to end the game.
Ali Cook took the loss for Troy-Buchanan (9-2). In four-plus innings, she allowed five runs on five hits with five walks and three strikeouts.
Blair Oaks (4-0) hosts Helias on Tuesday.