By Jeremy McDonald
jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
DALLAS, Ore.– Fall Ball has arrived.
The first round of ballgames took to the Lyle Sports Complex in Dallas Saturday, the start of a two-day round-robin series of games as teams see what they have entering the next few weeks of Fall softball.
“It was good to see everybody, meet everybody because some of us haven’t seen some of them so it was good to meet everyone and play with each other to start the season,” said Dallas’ Madelyn Loughary.
Loughary was playing with the NW Bullets 18U-Campbell squad as the squad started the day with two tough losses before facing one of their own to cap off the day in the NW Bullets 18U Gold-Campos Saturday afternoon.
McNary’s Taylor Ebbs pointed to the cycling out of the 15 seniors from their previous squad, leaving essentially a new team in it’s wake with only four Seniors coming back. But the squad won their two games against the Washington Angels 18G (6-2) and Bat Company 18G (8-1) and had used a big fourth inning to separate themselves with their Bullet counterparts in the 6-3 finale for both teams.
Ebbs points to them just putting in work to pan out the edges that just comes with time and those valuable game reps.
“We just need to work, we just got to keep on putting in work. As the work continues, we’ll develop but as of right now we’re doing well and we’re brand new,” said Ebbs. “We went from 15 Seniors to four, we just have to talk to each other and learn how to play with each other and that just comes with time and games. Hopefully we’ll keep getting time and games together.”
Ebbs went 3-for-7 with 5RBI’s in the tripleheader for the Gold. The Dragons Maddie Doig and South Salem’s Delaney Keith each saw two plate appearances for the Gold team. River Mahler went 2-for-4 in three games.
Loughary only saw one plate appearance, flying out in the top of the second but made a nice catch flying into center field from right during the bottom half of the fourth that saved a run scoring; but the Dragon infielder pointed toward their play during that last game as something they’ll need to carry over Sunday. The fire, the competitive edge that held the NW Bullets 18U Gold-Campos in check outside of that fourth inning.
“Play like we did in that last game. Be competitive, we weren’t as competitive in the first couple of games and we’ll be more competitive in the next two tomorrow,” said Loughary.
The Campos squad plays at 8am and 10am Sunday morning back at Lyle with the NW Bullets-Campbell squad playing at noon and 2pm.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
