The Blair Oaks Lady Falcons had it all working Wednesday night.
Good pitching. Good hitting. Good baserunning. Good defense.
"I thought it was a complete team effort," Blair Oaks coach Sharon Buschjost said after a 13-0 win in five innings against the Jefferson City Lady Jays at Vogel Field. "I was very proud."
First, the good pitching. Blair Oaks senior Andi Siebeneck pitched a perfect game, retiring all 15 Lady Jays she faced, 11 via strikeout.
"Andi did not allow their hitters to build any confidence whatsoever and pass it on to the next batter," Buschjost said. "She just shut each batter down."
This marks the sixth straight season a Blair Oaks pitcher has tossed a perfect game. Wednesday was Siebeneck's second career perfect game, as she retired all 21 School of the Osage batters in an 8-0 win during the 2019 season.
"That's the best (pitcher) we've seen all year," Jefferson City coach Zac Miller said.
Next was the good hitting. Blair Oaks finished with 13 hits by eight players.
After a scoreless first inning, the Lady Falcons pushed four runs across the plate in the second and three more in the third, all scoring with two outs.
"Anytime those first two outs are made kind of quickly, you're hoping for something to extend the inning," Buschjost said. "Getting some two-out action was important tonight."
In the second inning, Blair Oaks sprayed the ball to all three fields. Emma Wolken hit a two-run single back up the middle, Kenzie Libbert followed with an RBI single to left field and Kadence Kliegel lined an RBI double to right to make the score 4-0.
"They're putting a good swing to a pitch," Buschjost said.
After that came the good baserunning. In the third inning, Kally Bruce lined a two-run double to straight-away center field. Bruce moved to third on the throw home, and after the ball careened off the brick backstop, she never slowed down, rounding third and scoring on a close play at the plate to extend the Blair Oaks lead to 7-0.
"Sometimes when I hold a player up, you tend to think the play is over at that point," Buschjost said. "The play's not over until the ball is in the circle."
Lastly was the good defense. Jefferson City only put the ball in play four times against Siebeneck, leaving little chance for the other eight Blair Oaks players to get in on the act.
However, the Lady Falcons got two outs on bunts in the third, Siebeneck caught a pop-up in the fourth and Wolken fielded a hard-hit grounder to shortstop and made the quick throw to beat Jefferson City's Kaylee Redcay to the first-base bag to end the game.
"That was the hardest ball put into play and it kept that last runner off base to finish the perfect game," Buschjost said.
In the fifth, coming off the bench for Blair Oaks was Kenadi Braun, who hit a leadoff single, and Morgan Luebbering, who doubled into the right-field corner.
Libbert went 3-for-4 with two singles, one double and two RBI, while Taylor Groner and Anna Hankins each had two hits. Wolken added a two-run double in the fifth to finish with a team-high four RBI.
"She hasn't had a lot of chances offensively, and she got her chance tonight," Buschjost said of Wolken.
Avrey Reynolds did not yield a walk in five innings for Jefferson City, striking out five.
"There were some balls they put good swings on and put them in the gaps," Miller said. "They took advantage of having runners on base."
The Lady Jays were trying to bounce back from a walk-off 3-2 loss Tuesday at Hickman.
"It was a good ballgame," Miller said. "We played pretty good defense, we put some good swings on some balls. It was an all-around good game for us, just a couple little miscues here and there."
Blair Oaks (13-3) plays Friday against Belton and Holden at the UCM Tournament in Warrensburg.
Jefferson City (2-14) returns to action next Tuesday at Battle.
In the JV game, Blair Oaks beat Jefferson City 16-0 in four innings to improve to 10-2-1.
Ava Willson pitched a two-hitter for the Lady Falcons, striking out nine, and she also drove in a pair of runs. Alyssa Reinkemeyer had a triple and two RBI, while Courtney Russell had a double and two RBI.