By Jeremy McDonald
jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
STAYTON, Ore.– Their 9-7 win over 3A Power Rainier on the heels of their 8-5 loss to McLoughlin seemed to maybe a good turning point for the Stayton softball team in this early season.
Since that hold off victory on March 30, the Eagles have wheeled off four straight wins following their 19-1 win over Sisters Wednesday afternoon at home.
“I think it helped our mentality a lot. It definitely made us more of a team, we really came together, especially after a loss with Mac-Hi the night before,” said Kelsie Walker. “We really came together as a team and I think that really carried on back home and hopefully it can get us a couple more wins.”
Walker started in the circle as her, Sydney Maurer and Emma Herberger all shared some time in the circle this season.
Walker pitched the first three innings against the Outlaws on Wednesday, striking out four before handing the ball over to Jessica Leimbach for the final two innings of the win to improve to 3-2 in Oregon West Conference game.
Their 19-run game, was their fourth 10-plus run game this season offensively. Tying their total of the same feat 10-games into their 2019 campaign while their defense is holding opponents to 55 runs.
“We’re just working on hitting the ball in practice and we’re working on making less mistakes in the field,” said Cedella Ritchie.
Ritchie went 3-for-4 with three RBIs and Maurer went 4-for-4 with four RBIs as the Eagles 11-run second inning turned the close 3-1 game into a 14-1 lead entering the third inning before tacking on five more runs in the bottom half of the third inning to wrap up the scoring.
Weather permitting, they’ll have a chance to snap North Marion’s five-game winning streak Friday in Aurora before taking on rival Cascade Monday in Turner and going into those games with the mentality of as if they’re play McLoughlin again.
“We came into this game with the mentality of, we need to treat it like we’re going to come back and play Mac-High. So if we keep coming in with that mentality of, ‘every team is going ot be tough. Every game is going to be hard’,” starts Walker. “But we have to come out, straight out of the gate getting runs and hopefully that will keep the streak going.”
