CONRAD — The first of three-straight tournament weekends treated the Marshalltown softball team pretty well.

The Bobcats blasted a pair of North Iowa Cedar League opponents on Saturday, outscoring South Hardin 10-1 and AGWSR 17-7 to lose out a 2-1 showing at BCLUW’s Dave Lee Classic.

Marshalltown (8-8) narrowly missed out on a perfect weekend, falling 2-1 to previously ranked Sumner-Fredericksburg on Friday night, but first-year head coach Madaline Dalke still got what she wanted to get out of the team’s first full weekend of competition.

“A lot of girls saw a lot more at-bats than what they normally would, and I think for them they were just having fun and learning that the game is simple when you have fun,” Dalke said. “The plan was to get everybody in the game, and everybody saw some time. Everybody hit, everybody played the field, and my big thing was letting them create their own runs and create their own outs.”

So the Bobcats did it with their bats.

Marshalltown smacked out 12 hits in the win over South Hardin and nine more against AGWSR, totaling 27 runs in back-to-back games for the first time since getting 28 in a doubleheader sweep of Waterloo East last July.

South Hardin (0-14) actually held a shortlived lead on the Bobcats, scoring once in the bottom of the first inning after a leadoff double by Ella Owens.

The Bobcats bounced back with the tying run in the second before finally getting their timing down in the fifth. Olivia Wise singled and Abby Janssen drove her home with a two-out double. Briley Danielson walked and Emma Stupp slapped a double down the left-field line.

Hanna Osgood followed with an RBI single, putting the Bobcats on top 5-1.

In the seventh, five-straight MHS hitters reached base, highlighted by Stupp’s second two-run double that hit the fence, Lauren O’Neal’s RBI groundout, and a two-run single for Wise.

Danielson struck out two of the three batters she faced in the bottom off the seventh to finish off the win. She scattered four hits and two walks against seven strikeouts, and got a boost from her defense when shortstop Kendall Brummel snared a looping liner off the bat of Charlee Rosonke and completed an unassisted double play, forcing out the Tiger baserunner that had strayed too far from second.

“[Danielson] threw very well in our first game and our bats were really hot as well,” Dalke said. “That’s what wins games a lot of times is solid pitching and good at-bats.”

The Bobcats again fell behind briefly in their tournament finale as AGWSR (1-15) got a first-inning double that led to a go-ahead run.

Marshalltown answered with five runs in the first, nine in the second, two more in the third and one in the fourth to finish off the Cougars.

AGWSR scored six times in the top of the fourth inning to prolong the game before the Bobcats could end it by mercy rule. The Cougars got seven of their nine hits in the top of the fourth against Osgood, who walked two and struck out none in the win.

Osgood’s two-out, two-run single in the bottom of the first gave Marshalltown the lead for good.

Wise hit a pair of two-run singles, Bristol Ealy was 2-for-3 with an RBI and three runs scored in her return to action, and Janssen had two hits and was hit by a pitch twice. Her courtesy runner Charlotte Reyes scored three times.

Leah Graves scored three times and drove in a run, and Kamryn Price doubled and scored.

“[Friday] we hit it straight to people and they made good plays,” Dalke said. “Today we hit it to the gaps and they made a few errors, which benefitted us.”

Dalke had to visit the pitcher’s circle during AGWSR’s six-run rally in the fourth, issuing a simple message amidst the rain.

“We weren’t playing Bobcat softball, and the energy was really, really low,” she said. “I told them if they wanted to win the game and end it, they needed to end it, and they can’t just mope around.”

Marshalltown returns to Iowa Alliance Conference play with Thursday’s home doubleheader against Des Moines East.