A future Northern State softball player looked right at home at Koehler Hall of Fame Field on the NSU campus Tuesday afternoon.

Wolves recruit Dessa Bryant, wearing the maroon and gold colors of Harrisburg, fired a two-hit shutout in a 16-0 Eastern South Dakota Conference softball victory over Aberdeen Central.

“It was super fun to have all of the girls here and show them what it is and how nice the field is,” Bryant said of her future home. “It was cool to be here.”

It was tough game for the Golden Eagles who committed multiple errors against one of the top teams in the state.

“Our last few games, we’ve been able to make some little mistakes here and there and it not really come back to bite us,” said Central coach Cassidy Neer, “but you really have to play clean softball against good, quality teams, especially those top-tier teams. We just didn’t do that today.”

Harrisburg scored in every inning of the five-inning contest, and received hits from eight different players.

Meanwhile, the Golden Eagles had just two hits, both from Kylee Hoffman, who smacked a double over the leftfielder’s head in Central’s first at-bat.

“I think my approach, coach and I always talk about my approach, is just jump early on anything I see,” Hoffman said, “and I did that.”

Hoffman’s hit got Bryant’s attention.

“I hadn’t pitched for a while,” Bryant said, “and I was like, oh no, but it all turned out.”

That’s because Bryant settled in and retired the last eight batters she faced.

“After a few pitches, I just got back to how I knew how to pitch,” Bryant said.

Central may have gotten more hits, but Harrisburg third baseman Macy Bryant sucked up every ball hit her way, throwing out several runners with laser throws across the diamond.

“She’s my cousin, also. It makes it even more fun that she’s on the team,” Dessa Bryant said. “She’s a great player. I love to have her there.”

The Golden Eagles also came up with several sparkling plays as Aliya Torigian prevented multiple hits with solid catches in rightfield.

“There were a lot of good takeways. Our rightfielder Aliya, she had a wonderful day out on defense, really took away big hits for them, and just some other things there,” Neer said. “We had some 0-2 counts offensively and came back and got on base. We were getting baserunners on there, we just weren’t getting them across the plate like we have been.”

The Golden Eagles, who play on the road against Brandon Valley on Thursday, will try to get in a solid day of practice before then.

“We always like to go into practice before games feeling good,” Hoffman said, “and I think that’s been a big thing is if we feel good leaving practice the day before, we seem to play pretty well the next day. Even if our outcome isn’t what we want it to be, we still play pretty good and I think that really helps for us.”

With SoDak 16 games set for next Tuesday, Neer knows the competition the rest of the way will be high quality, much like what the Eagles saw against Harrisburg.

“That’s exactly what we talked about after the game today,” Neer said. “These are the types of teams we want to see right now, because that’s what we’re going to see the rest of the season.”

Harrisburg 236 14 – 16 12 0

Aberdeen Central 000 00 – 0 2 4

Dessa Bryant and Brooklyn Haffey; Kaylee Kiesow, Kylee Hoffman (4) and Reese Comstock. 2B – Harrisburg, Bryant, Hailey Boer, Madelyn Ducheneaux, Peyton Bennett; Aberdeen Central, Hoffman.