EAST LANSING — The Rogers City softball team started its season off with a bang as they traveled to East Lansing for a tournament and came away victorious, going a perfect 3-0 to capture the tournament championship in their first games of the year.

“It was a good tournament. It was nice to get three good wins to start off the season and win a tournament,” Rogers City coach Karl Grambau said. “We did a lot of good things, our pitching was good and I am happy with how we started and we’ll continue to try and get better as the season goes on.”

The Hurons opened the tournament with a wild 11-10 victory over Dewitt.

Jayna Hance picked up the win as she relieved Krysten Altman who started the game going 4 1/3 and struck out two batters. Hance pitched the final 2 2/3 innings and allowed three runs on two hits and fanned four batters.

At the plate in game one, Rogers City was led by Kayla Rabeau who had two hits and three RBI. Hance helped her own cause recording two hits and scoring four runs. Altman had a hit and scored three times. Hannah Dittmar also collected a hit and three RBI. Alissa Bowden and Jazmyn Saile each had a hit apiece. Saile’s hit was key as she entered the game to pinch hit with the Hurons down two in the bottom of the sixth and she led off with a single to start a rally that ended with Rogers City scoring three runs to take the lead and pick up the win.

Rogers City’s bats didn’t slow down any in game two as they beat St. Johns by a score of 10-6.

Hance pitched a complete game to pick up the win as she allowed six runs on 11 hits and struck out two.

Hance again helped herself as she collected three hits and had an RBI. Dittmar had two hits and an RBI. Saige Wagner had an RBI triple, Bowden had two hits and an RBI and both Hannah and Taylor Fleming each picked up one hit apiece.

Rogers City advanced to the finals and played its best game of the weekend as they shut out Mason by a score of 6-0 to capture the trophy.

Altman was stellar on the mound, allowing no runs, on just two hits, while striking out four.

Offensively, Rabeau had a hit and two runs scored. Dittmar picked up a hit, an RBI and scored two runs. Jordyn Schalk had a key bases loaded, pinch hit RBI single.

“It was really nice to finally get outside and to do as well as we did was also really nice to see,” Grambau said. “We played well, but there are a few things that we saw that we still need to work on and get better at, but I beilieve over time we will eventually be able to fix those things. Overall, it was just a really good weekend of ball for us.”

With the victories, Rogers City starts the year 3-0 and will have a quick turn around as they are back in action today as the Hurons open North Star League play on the road against Whittemore-Prescott.