NEW WASHINGTON — Wednesday night’s Seneca East-Buckeye Central softball game was so cold that people were expecting to see Santa’s Sleigh on the horizon.

It was just 41 degrees at game time and got colder as the game wore on, but the Seneca East bats heated up the game.

The Lady Tigers banged out 20 hits, including three doubles, and scored the final 18 runs in an 18-2 win in a game shortened to five innings.

With the win, Seneca East improved to 2-5 in the Northern 10 Athletic Conference, 3-11 overall, while Buckeye Central fell to 3-4 in the conference, 3-7 overall.

Seneca East coach Steve Coppes said that his team used a balanced attack to down the Buckettes.

“We hit the ball and played some consistent defense today,” Coppes said. “And our pitchers came through. We have some kids banged up pitching-wise, so they battled through, and everyone contributed.

“It was a nice overall win,” he added.

After the Buckettes took a 2-0 lead after one inning, Seneca East starter Abbi Drosky permitted just two hits over the final four innings.

“Abbi threw strikes today and that’s what we want from our starters,” Coppes said.

The Buckettes took the 2-0 lead in the first. Adrienne Jury opened the inning with a double to left before Alyse Siefert walked and both scored on a Cierra Schneider double to right.

But the Lady Tigers came right back, scoring six in the second.

Macey Webb, Brie Price, and Myah Geary singled while Drosky doubled in the rally. The Lady Tigers also got two walks in the process.

“When it’s cold it’s tough,” Buckeye Central coach Todd Messmer said. “One of our starting pitchers has asthma and she was having problems. So, we had to take her out and put our backup pitchers in.

“She gets limited time,” Messmer added. “But we’re a work in progress.”

The Tigers added five more runs in the third on singles from Addy Dawson, Price, Alaina Chapman, and Mia Holmes.

Seneca East scored six more runs in the fourth on hits from Dawson, Drosky, and Price, along with hits from Regan Strawser, Holmes, and Geary.

“A few of the girls really hit the ball well tonight,” Coppes said. “And that’s what we’ve been working on and slowly getting better each week. This week we really started hitting the ball harder.”

Buckeye Central clean-up hitter Phoebe Rafferty had two of the team’s four hits.

Jury worked the first two frames in the circle for BC while Mya Metzger worked an inning and Siefert pitched the final two innings.

“We’re pretty young,” Messmer said. “A lot of freshmen came in and got to play in the later innings. We just have work to do. We’ll get back at it tonight.”

Box score 

Seneca East             065 61X X       18      20        1

Buckeye Central    200 00X X         2         4         2

WP: Abbi Drosky (1 SO, 7 W)

LP: Adrienne Jury (3 SO, 2 W)

HR: None.

Triples: None.

Doubles: (SE) Madi Smith, Addy Smith, Abbi Drosky; (BC) Adrienne Jury, Cierra Schneider.

Multiple hits: (SE) Macey Webb 4, Abbi Drosky 3, Myah Geary 3, Brie Price, Mia Holmes; (BC) Phoebe Rafferty.

Records: Seneca East 3-11, 2-5 N10; Buckeye Central 3-7, 3-4 N10.

Next: Bucyrus at Seneca East, Thursday; Sandusky St. Mary at Buckeye Central, Thursday.