They are close friends on and off the softball diamond. They’re a pair of left-handed hitters. They’ve made a home at the top of the lineup for the W.F. West High School softball team.
And Lena Fragner and Addie Froschauer have a pair of unique nicknames.
“I’m Larry and she’s Fro-Yo,” Fragner said. “We came up with them ourselves. We have a good time.”
"Larry" and "Fro-Yo" were the main reasons the Bearcats continued their winning streak.
Those two each had three hits — including a double — and the rest of their lineup fell into place as they triumphed over Rochester 15-5 in five innings on Friday night at a rainy and chilly Recreation Park.
“Lena has been rock solid most of the year and Addie is really coming on now,” W.F. West head coach Kevin Zylstra said. “When those two get on, then we have Avalon (Myers) and Staysha (Fleutsch) coming up. Which as a pitch-caller, I wouldn’t want to face those guys.”
Five straight wins for the Bearcats (13-4, 9-1 EvCo) have seen their final outputs eclipse double figures in four of those verdicts. They are still keeping pace with Tumwater in trying to leap over the Thunderbirds for the league’s No. 1 seed in the Class 2A District 4 tournament.
A senior night win over Shelton on Monday would secure W.F. West at bare minimum the second seed.
“We push really hard and put in a lot of extra work,” Froschauer said.
The first league meeting between Rochester and W.F. West was a thriller. The latter needed three runs in the top of the seventh and a shutdown effort in the circle to stave off the former.
Friday was one-sided right away.
The Bearcats batted around in the bottom of the first and plated 10 runs off Warriors ace Layna Demers. Fluetsch ripped a two-run single, Kenley Fragner and Ella Young roped back-to-back RBI doubles to make it 5-0.
Then after a Taylor Tobin RBI two-bagger, Rochester (8-11, 4-6) committed a costly infield error to keep the inning going. Three more run-scoring hits by W.F. West ended up as the final blow.
“Not often do we just jump on it like that,” Lena Fragner said. “We are capable of doing that because we haven’t done that this season.”
Just like they did in a non-league game against Tenino, the Warriors didn’t wilt.
They put together a four-run top of the fourth that was started by a solo home run from Leah Hartley and ended with two runs scoring on an error.
“When you play in the rain, you never know what is going to happen,” Zylstra said.
W.F. West got all those runs back in the bottom half on two errors and back-to-back RBI singles from ‘Larry’ and ‘Fro-Yo.’
“It was a combination of being proud of them, but also expecting it,” Zylstra said. “I just had a feeling we would come through. Did it in kind of a weird way.”
Fluetsch, Kenley Fragner and Young all recorded two hits for the Bearcats. Tobin struck out seven in the circle as she went the full five innings in the circle.
“We knew what we needed to do and we came out and did it,” Froschauer said.
Hartley launched a second solo home run in the fifth, but Rochester couldn’t scrape across another run to keep the contest going. Its defense committed five errors on the night.
The Warriors, still tied with Centralia for the last playoff spot in the league, will take on Black Hills on Monday.
