Christmas is a little less than eight months from now, but that didn't keep Lake Central's softball team from being in a gift-giving mood.
The Indians (12-9, 4-5) committed eight errors in their Duneland Athletic Conference game with Crown Point -- including four during a six-run fourth inning -- and basically gift-wrapped a 7-3 victory for the Bulldogs (12-1, 9-0) Thursday.
"We didn't hit a whole lot of balls hard today, but when we did, there were people on base," Crown Point coach Brett Crutchfield said. "On a day like this (winds were gusting at approximately 40 miles per hour), that's what you've got to do -- put the ball in play and see what happens."
Lake Central starting pitcher Brookelyn Tucker deserved a better fate.
The sophomore allowed only five hits, but her teammates had a difficult time adjusting to the wind conditions and let her down with some dropped balls and other mistakes.
"This was by far her best outing of the year," LC coach Jeff Sherman sad. "She did a good job of keeping the ball down and kept their hitters off-balance a lot. I don't think she gave up a lot of hard hits."
Katrina Klingberg drove in three runs -- the first with a sacrifice fly in the third inning and two more with a double in the fourth -- to help CP open up a 7-1 lead entering the fifth inning.
"Before the game we were all saying not to swing for the fences, because that would cause us to pop the ball up high in the air," Klingberg said.
The Bulldogs broke the game open with their six runs in the fourth, which gave Crown Point starting pitcher, Taylor Perry, some breathing room.
Perry struck out 11 and walked three, but was hit pretty hard in the second, fifth and seventh innings, allowing a run in each frame.
Perry went 61/3 innings before giving way to Jackie Beilfuss in the seventh. She fanned two hitters to earn her first save.
"I didn't really think I pitched that good, and I didn't have good control of my strike zone," Perry said. "My defense did a good job of getting me out of the (second-inning) jam."
After cleaning up its defense the last seven or eight outings, Sherman thought his team had conquered some of its defensive woes.
"You can't blame the wind for all those errors," he said. "We knew what the conditions were coming in. We just have to make plays."
Most of the balls that were hit were very makeable plays."
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