St. Dominic held a lead against the Warrenton softball team for less than 10 minutes on Tuesday.

Then “Clutch” came to the plate for the Lady Warriors.

Amanda Vehlewald sent a pitch over the left field fence with the bases loaded to gain a 4-2 lead in the bottom of the third inning en route to a 7-2 win. The win put the Lady Warriors at 11-1 on the year.

Warrenton coach Trevor Hibbs said the junior — who went 3-for-4 in the game with five RBIs — has come through offensively for the Lady Warriors as of late, hitting .465 on the year.

“I’ll have to nickname her clutch because she’s been a lifesaver,” Hibbs said of Vehlewald. “She’s had four or five game-winning RBIs for us already. The top of our lineup is pretty tough so teams don’t want to pitch to them, and she hits a big double or triple so she’s come through big for us.”

In that third inning, junior Kelsey Huenefeld led off the inning with a double to the gap in left center. Senior Jenny Jansen drew a walk and junior Destinee Frost was hit by a pitch. 

Vehlewald’s grand slam gave the Lady Warriors the lead for good.

Vehlewald said the home run was a confidence boost.

“She gave me the pitch I was looking for and I just hit it,” Vehlewald said. “Your confidence really goes up. Each time you go up to bat you have that drive to do well each time.”

St. Dominic wouldn’t go away, though. In the top of the fourth inning, an infield hit and a walk put runners on base. 

A sacrifice bunt put the runners on second and third with two outs, but Warrenton pitcher Kaylee Anderson got Amber Wamhoff to ground out to end the inning and the threat.

Anderson allowed two hits and struck out six in the complete game win. 

The senior walked four.

“I think them getting a couple of runs early might have woke us up some,” Hibbs said. “It might have been a good thing because we came out kind of flat. We’ve had a bunch of crazy weather and haven’t been able to have good practices. You can get a bit flat at times when you haven’t been playing.”

Jensen singled down the third base line to score Anderson in the bottom of the fourth to extend the lead to 5-2. Frost and Vehlewald had RBIs in the bottom of the sixth for two more Warrenton runs to seal the win.

St. Dominic pitcher Morgan Luetkenhaus took the loss in the game, allowing ten hits and striking out four.

Warrenton travels to St. Clair Monday.