By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

KEIZER, Ore.–  With their backs against the wall, the McNary softball answered the bell to pull off their fifth-straight win, this one against a quality 5A team of Crater from Central Point.

Lacey Vasas and the Comets Alexis Perez led a defensive battle through the first four innings of the game where only four base-runners managed to reach.  Those involved two Heather Ebner hits, a Karah Miller walk and a single from Crater’s Katelynn Wolchok. 

“It was really nice to have this game to help get us ready for Sprague and our upcoming games.  We really needed this game and we really needed that win.” Ebner said.

And they needed one big inning to get that win, a 6-3 result, but over the course of the fifth and sixth innings Tuesday afternoon, everything went against the Celtics.  Errors on the defensive side allowed the Comets to slowly pull away going into the sixth inning.

Up to this point, McNary had a runner in scoring position in the bottom of the fourth and two on base in the fifth innings.  It wasn’t until the sixth however in which they had turned a nightmare second half of the game into more of an ‘ok. We’re back in this thing.’

Long story short, they quickly loaded up the bases with no outs and slowly picked at the lead.  Hannah Ebner and Ellie Martin each had an RBI single.  A 2RBI single from Brooklynn Jackson that had given the Celts a 4-3 lead with two outs was followed up with a 2 RBI single by Heather Ebner, who had started the inning with a single, to give McNary a 6-3 cushion lead going into the seventh.

“It was definitely a test for us to see if we could pull it together as a team and work together,” Jackson said.  “The biggest thing that helped us picking each other up and we were able to do that, and we pulled it off.  With Heather started the at-bat, she was strong the whole game and getting on base was the start and everyone was able to make an adjustment.  We were able to get base hits and string them together and it worked in our favor.”

Heather Ebner went 4-for-4 in the game with 2RBI’s, Jackson also drove in 2RBI’s as they got Crater to go into their bullpen in the sixth to try to slow the damage.  Eventually doing so, but the Comets couldn’t duplicate their previous two innings in the final frame as they saw their eight-game winning streak snapped on the road.

Lilli Reid drove in 2RBI’s for Crater with Taylor Kenworthy driving in another RBI in Tuesday’s non-league contest.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald