The Nansemond River High School softball team tackled a challenging schedule in its first week of the 2016 season and went 3-0.

On Friday, the Lady Warriors hosted Deep Creek High School, one of the most highly regarded teams in the area and one that made it to the Group 4A state tournament last year.

The Lady Hornets had suffered a 12-1 loss earlier in the week to Grassfield High School, the 2015 Group 6A state champion, and they came out the way NR coach Gabe Rogers expected on Friday.

“They were aggressive at the plate, put a lot of balls in play, and we just made play after play after play,” he said.

The third straight day of errorless defensive play by the Lady Warriors led Nansemond River to a 5-1 victory.

By the time games are over at NR, it has been a long day on the field for its softball players.

Rogers said while games typically start at 5:30 p.m., he has observed some of the girls out on the field as early as 2:30 or 3 p.m., hitting ground balls to each other and going through other drills.

“It just pays off by what we’ve done,” Rogers said of the initiative they’ve shown. “All that hard work that they put in is showing.”

There were a variety of heroic defensive moments for the Lady Warriors.

At one point in the game, Deep Creek was making some things happen offensively. Nansemond River senior KateLynn Hodgkiss was involved in a hard collision at second base and shortly thereafter had a ground ball hit to her. She threw the ball to first but was not able to get it all the way there, bouncing it.

“Lauren Davis just made this tremendous stretch and catches the ball off the hop, which ended the inning, saves the run,” Rogers said.

At another point in the game, the Lady Hornets were threatening again with a runner on second base. The ball was hit to Hodgkiss at shortstop by a fast runner.

Understanding the girl at second was an aggressive runner, Hodgkiss faked a throw to first, causing the girl at second to bolt for third. When the girl realized the ball had gone nowhere, she retreated, but Hodgkiss caught her before she could get back to second.

“It’s plays like that that kind of shift the momentum of the game,” Rogers said. “That killed that inning for them.”

Rogers said senior Maddie McGrath played incredibly good defense at third base and completed a strong week on offense by going 2-for-3 with a big double and a single on Friday.

“She’s just seeing the ball really well,” he said.

Senior Lauren Maddrey was 2-for-3 with two singles and played a key role in the circle.

“At the end of the night, Lauren didn’t throw her best game, she threw effectively, and that’s the key there,” Rogers said. “She wasn’t at her best, but she was effective, and she kept the ball around the plate, and she wound up with just one strikeout on the evening, and it was actually a huge strikeout for us.”

It came in the seventh inning against Deep Creek’s leadoff batter, a great contact hitter, who was looking to move runners on second and third with only one out on the board. Up in the count, Maddrey threw a change-up that fooled the batter to strike her out.

“It was a great pitch at the right time,” Rogers said.

Nansemond River (3-0) visits Hickory High School on Tuesday and Indian River High School on Thursday.