Contagious behavior results in another victory for Bunte, Raiders and season sweep of Blue Devils

QUINCY — The word Caitlin Bunte sought to describe the manner in which the Quincy Notre Dame softball team is stringing victories together popped in her head in the middle of her answer.

“Oh, contagious,” she said. “That’s it.”

Winning is contagious. Hitting is contagious. Energy is contagious.

“We have so many leaders who like to talk on our team and bring us energy,” Bunte said. “We have random energy sometimes. It comes from anyone and anywhere. It just brings us all together.”

Monday, the junior left-handed pitcher was responsible for the injection of life.

“I was full of energy,” Bunte said. “Games get me so excited and it just shows all day. In the dugout, on the field, in school, at 6 in the morning. It doesn’t matter. It’s all day.”

Even QND coach Eric Orne noticed it.

“You could just tell walking the hallways at school that she had a little pep about her,” Orne said. “You could tell she felt pretty confident coming into this game tonight.”

That didn’t bode well for Quincy High School. Bunte twirled a four-hitter, striking out 12 and limiting the Blue Devils a single fourth-inning run as the Raiders completed a sweep of the season series with a 7-1 victory at the QHS field.

The Raiders also won 4-0 on April 10 at The Backyard as Bunte threw 3 ⅔ scoreless innings of relief with nine strikeouts. In five career appearances against the Blue Devils, Bunte is 3-0 with 41 strikeouts in 27 ⅔ innings. QND is 6-0 in the crosstown series with Bunte in the lineup.

“She got stronger as the game went on,” Orne said. “She had a little zip tonight. Her velo was a lot better than it’s been.”

It helped being staked to a five-run lead.

Scoreless heading into the fifth inning, QND second baseman Lanie Fesler led off with by working a full count and drawing a walk. Bunte followed with another walk, and both runners advanced and scored on wild pitches as QHS starter Kayden Smith walked the first four batters of the inning.

An Alyssa Ley RBI double and a two-run Payton Stupavsky made it 5-0.

“Lanie Fesler had a great at-bat drawing that 3-2 walk,” said Orne, whose team is 12-1 overall. “That got us some momentum going. We took some pitches and got some people on base. Then we hit the ball hard down on the ground and get something out of it.”

Bunte said Fesler’s at-bat set the tone.

“That was a lot of motivation for all of us,” Bunte said. “Since she battled through that at-bat, we know we can, too.”

Trailing 6-0 going to the bottom of the fourth, the Blue Devils (7-5) engineered a run as Avery Hlubek singled with one out, Aurora Allison was hit by a pitch and Paige Kurfman reached on an infield single to load the bases. Hlubek scored on Smith’s RBI groundout, but Bunte avoided any further damage with an inning-ending groundout.

Bunte retired nine of the next 11 batters to end the game.

“(The umpire’s) strike zone kind of cooperated with what I throw best, so that seemed to work,” Bunte said. “I just went off that.”

Smith allowed only one hit through two full innings before being lifted in the third, while Carlee Gilker allowed eight hits, three runs and one walk with one strikeout over five innings for the Blue Devils, who are scheduled to play four more times this week.