ARGYLE — With limited mutual off-days remaining in the season, Juda-Albany and Argyle opted to play their scheduled game on April 29 in cool and wet conditions. 

The pitcher’s duel was worth the price of admission. 

Emily Makos gutted through an injury and Juda-Albany grabbed its statement win of the season, 1-0 in eight innings.

“It’s been a rough week for the kids — they’ve been facing a lot of adversity,” Panthers coach Bill Davis said. “There’s been a death at the school and then one of our girls lost a grandparent over the weekend in kind of a freak accident. It’s a real nice win for them and can get their mind off of things for a while.”

Makos opened the year injured and was unavailable for the Panthers’ first several games. In the third inning against Argyle, she took a liner to her left wrist off the bat of Orioles counterpart Grace Ganshert.

Davis looked over Makos and had another player begin to warm up, but Makos opted to stay in, with the injury on her glove side, and not her pitching hand.

“It was hard, but I did it for the team. They’d do it for me, so I thought I would push through and try to get a win,” Makos said of staying in the game.

Makos struck out Lexi Leigh to end the inning.

The game was relatively drama free throughout as both teams struggled to get anyone into scoring position.

Ganshert was equally stunning on the mound, fooling the Panthers with changing of speed, location and movement.

Kirsten Oliver sparked Juda’s first legitimate shot to score, walking on a full count to lead off the sixth. She advanced to second on a ground ball, but with two outs was caught stealing third thanks to a dart on the bullseye from Argyle catcher Tori Lantz to third baseman Alysabeth Lantz.

Argyle’s Kirsten Ostby reached second base in the bottom of the frame, but Jadyn Saalsaa flew out to Anna Skoumal in center field to end the threat. Both teams went down in order in the seventh.

The Orioles, which were honorable mention in the Wisconsin Fastpitch Softball Coaches Association rankings released minutes before the game, had a couple of misfortunes in the eighth inning on consecutive pitches.

After a fly-out to center and a Skoumal bunt attempt thwarted on a hustle catch by Ganshert, things took a turn for the worst for Argyle. Lydia Bouc hit a fly ball to center that Saalsaa, an all-conference defender in 2018, dropped. Oliver then singled on a weak blooper that narrowly missed the diving glove of Ostby at shortstop on the very next pitch. 

Both runners advanced a base when the next pitch was a passed ball. Juda-Albany’s Trinity Elmer then hit a light bloop up the first base line on the next pitch, but Ganshert and first baseman Maggie Godfrey both charged for it, and no one covered first base, allowing the game’s only run to score. Brianna Crull then popped out to short on the first pitch she saw to end the frame.

“Sometimes the softball gods are in your favor a little bit. We’ve been on the other side of those, too. I guess this time it was our turn,” Davis said.

“Maybe next time it will be our turn to get those bloopers,” Argyle coach Heidi Ganshert said.

In the Orioles’ half of the inning, leadoff hitter Claudia Miller hit a deep liner to center on the first pitch she saw. Skoumal slipped in the mud on her initial step off the bat, but still managed to make the over-the-shoulder catch that would have gone for extra bases otherwise.

“Anna Skoumal is a freshman and really worked her way into it and earned her spot and has been playing great ball for us. That’s pretty impressive as a freshman. I’m very proud of her and her effort,” Davis said.

Ganshert then nearly gave Makos a heart attack, smoking another liner directly at her counterpart again. This time, Makos caught the ball.

“I just didn’t want to get hit again, so I thought ‘I’d better catch this one,’” Makos said.

Leigh singled to right to keep Argyle alive, but Ostby, the team’s No. 3 hitter, hit a weak grounder to the mound for the game’s final out.

As Makos returned to the dugout, tears swelled up around her eyes — part tears of joy, part tears of pain.

“We can take a lot of different learning opportunities out of it as a lot of different plays happened,” said Makos, who added that this win was one of the best wins she has been a part of on the mound.

Makos finished with eight strikeouts and allowed just four hits and no walks on 102 pitches to 30 batters — just over three pitches per batter. She threw 22 first-pitch strikes. Ganshert struck out 11 while allowing just two hits and three walks in 123 pitches to 31 batters.

“Both pitchers did a really good job,” Argyle coach Heidi Ganshert said. “I was a little upset at our pitch selection and our batting in general. We usually hit better than that. They had the ones in the stretch that we didn’t have.”

After struggling to open the season, Juda-Albany has now won five of its last seven games, with one of those losses coming to unbeaten Highland, ranked fourth in the state.

“We played a game the other night over in Highland and lost 2-1. Our defense has been playing pretty tough and Emily has been throwing great for us. We just have got to find a way to manufacture some runs,” Davis said.

While disappointed in the loss, the Orioles are still tied for the lead with Juda-Albany at the top of the conference standings.

“Positive … We’re still in the run for conference. We just have to do better next time — hit better and field better,” Heidi Ganshert said.