Altamont Senior Grace Lemke Surpasses 1,000 Career Strikeouts

Altamont softball senior pitcher Grace Lemke surpassed a huge career milestone on Thursday and one you don’t hear about too often as she now has over 1,000 career strikeouts. Heading into the Lady Indians game at Vandalia, Lemke needed six strikeouts to get to the 1,000 strikeout mark and reached that point in the third inning of the game. Lemke says there were some nerves before the game but she just had to put them aside once she stepped onto the field.

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Lemke went on to record 20 strikeouts in the game with her 18^th, 19^th and 20^th coming in the bottom of the eight inning. With bases loaded and no outs and the Lady Indians leading 2-1, Lemke was able to get a strikeout swinging and then caught the next two batters looking to get out of the jam and close out the Altamont win. With just over 250 strikeouts on the season, Lemke is averaging just over 16 strikeouts per game this season for the 13-5 Lady Indians.