The 2023 Greene County High School softball season began on Monday night with a trip to Roland to face Roland-Story in Heart of Iowa Activities Conference play. Coach Tom Kennedy’s team won by a 3-0 score behind the three-hit, 12 strikeout performance from senior pitcher Emma Hoyle. At one point Hoyle retired 16 straight Norsemen batters and she threw all seven innings without issuing a walk.The win stopped a six game losing streak to R-S and the Rams begin a season with a win for just the second time in the past several seasons.

The Rams had nine hits, all singles, and scored single runs in the third, fifth, and sixth innings. Olivia Shannon and Alexa Peters each had two hits with one each from Hoyle, Emma Stream, Becca Anderson, Payton Kokenge, and Paige Teeples. Violet Reedy had the lone run batted in. The Rams were not charged with any errors and they totaled four stolen bases with two by Shannon, and one each for Anderson and Kokenge.

Greene County opens the home schedule tonight vs. Nodaway Valley (Greenfield) at 7:30 p.m. on KG98 and streamed on www.raccoonvalleyradio.com.