Helias brought the bats Wednesday night. They just couldn't stack up with Hickman's big hitters.
Hickman launched three home runs to power the Lady Kewpies past Helias 11-5 at Duensing Field.
"Five runs, we had a shot at them if we could have gotten out of a couple of those innings," Helias head coach Dan Campbell said. "We could have put some more pressure on them. That's what we were trying to do, just extend the game as long as we could, put some pressure on them and maybe something would break for us. It didn't break that way."
The decisive inning came in the fifth.
With Hickman clinging to a 4-3 advantage, the Lady Kewpies exploded for six runs, highlighted by three homers, to blow the game wide open.
"They've got good sticks," Campbell said. "We knew their three and four (hitters) were pretty good. We knew it was going to take several runs to have a chance."
Allie Dishinger crushed a two-run shot to left-center to put Hickman ahead 6-3 before Shannon Greene followed with a solo blast to left.
Cassie Kent added a solo home run to left-center two batters later before Brittany Nelson shot the gap in right to bring home a pair of runs four batters later. That made it 10-3, essentially putting the game out of reach. Kent's RBI single in the top of the sixth put the score at 11-3.
"They have too many good hitters," Campbell said. "You're not going to shut them down completely. They just caught up to us there in the fifth inning. They just have too many hitters."
Paige Bange delivered a two-run single in the bottom of the sixth to reach the final margin.
Hickman originally took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first on an RBI groundout from Nelson and a run-scoring single from Dishinger. The Lady Kewpies made it 3-0 in the top of the second on an RBI single from Riley Wilson.
Helias fought back with a pair of runs in the bottom of the second, and probably should have ended up with more.
Peyton Hall skied a solo home run just inside the foul pole down the left-field line to cut the deficit to 3-1.
Following a bunt single from Kaysie Scheuler, a pair of Hickman errors made it 3-2. Hickman elected to issue an intentional pass to Bange, loading the bases with two outs. Lauren Morrow stepped up and smashed a grounder to third, forcing a nice play to nab her at first.
"Peyton's been hitting the ball well for us," Campbell said of the home run. "We just have to get some other girls hitting it now and putting it in play. That's one of the things we did tonight, we put it in play and they made a few mistakes. We haven't been doing that lately. Any time you put it in play you have a chance."
Hickman extended the advantage to 4-2 on an RBI single from Kent in the top of the third.
Scheuler's RBI groundout in the bottom of the frame made it 4-3. Helias had runners on second and third with one out in the inning, but could only muster the one run. The Lady Crusaders left 11 runners on base in the contest.
"That's a credit to their pitching," Campbell said. "They have two really good throwers."
Those two pitchers were Morgan Greene, who picked up the win by tossing five frames, and Greene, who threw the final two.
Hall, Hayley Strope and Jordyn Nappier all had two hits for Helias, which ended up with nine hits.
Helias (6-13) travels today to Boonville.
"It's a big improvement from (Tuesday) night," Campbell said, referring to Helias' 10-0 loss at Fatima. "At least we had some intensity and some fire. We still lost, but I'm more pleased that we're moving in the right direction. Hopefully we can carry this into (today) and get a victory against Boonville."
Hickman won the JV game 16-3.