By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

TURNER, Ore.–  Cascade sophomore Malia Scanlan had herself an interesting end to her freshman year.  The final three games of the season, against Estacade, La Grande and in the 4A State Championship Game against Marist, Scanlan was part of the last out of the game from her third-base position.  

A very uncommon stretch that the then-freshman had to close out a very eventful first-year at the High School level.

“It was weird that it just kept happening over-and-over again.  Like we had two outs and the ball was hit to me, it kept happening and it was weird.  It was pretty awesome,” describes Scanlan, a first-team Oregon West Conference selection in 2022.

Scanlan and Kailee Bode are the two lone returners from the 4A State Championship team and despite the youth and new faces, the Cougars are currently 2-0 on the year after squeaking by the Spartans 14-10 Tuesday night in the first of two regular season match-ups between the two squads this Spring.  For Scanlan, she and Bode are taking lessons taught to them by last year’s seniors and carrying it over to this season.

“It was a great learning experience from all of the seniors.  They kept the energy up, they taught us how to be a family and be a team together,” Scanlan said of the seniors.  “The chemistry was great last year and this year is going to be really great to have us as leaders because we know how to run the team.  Our chemistry (this year) is good already, we’re pretty young but we’re looking pretty good so far.  It’s a good start to the season.”

Scanlan jokes that she’s hoping that she’s doing good in stepping into that leadership role this year.  Pointing towards it becoming easier to do so with the games actually starting and going on now compared to before the first game last week.  Now going into their trip out to Redmond for Spring Break, the new-look Cascade team is slowly seeing where they’re at as they start beginning to string practices into games and games into wins.

“I think now that we know where we stand…I think we’re now seeing our mistakes and seeing where we can work on and hopefully that’ll translate from here.  Redmond is going to be great and it’ll be a great opportunity to bond and figure things out and after that we’ll be pretty solid,” Scanlan said.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald