By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

BEAVERTON, Ore.–  Everything just flowed together for the Sprague Softball team to close out the first day of the Jesuit/Mountainside Spring Break Tournament Monday afternoon.

After Olivia Borzy’s walk-off hit against West Linn, handing the Olympians a 12-11 win and their first win since March 15, Sprague had a little bit of a lull against Liberty.  Trailing the Falcons 5-2 going into the third inning, the Olys began to pull it together as they drew Liberty back to within one going into the bottom half of the third inning.  Kaylee Lundeen, who started the game, pitched a shutout inning to close out the third frame and again in the fourth to give her offense a chance to continue to chip away at the deficit before Shayla Qualls took over in the fifth inning.

But before the sophomore took over, Qualls offense gave her a lead to work with going into her first inning.  Stella Puckett tied the game with an RBI single that drove Brenna Morris home and Puckett’s hit was followed by a two-run home run by Summer Melena to give Sprague their first lead of the game at 7-5.

“It was something positive for all of us.  For me, I was ecstatic because it’s been a while since I had a hit and it kept the energy going for the rest of the game to have our energy high.  It was great for the team,” Melena said.  “Last week when we played them, we didn’t have our bats at all and our defense was low.  We finally picked it up.”

After scoring two runs total against the Lions and Falcons last week, getting no-hit against West Linn and two against Liberty five days ago, the Sprague offense produced 23 hits and 20 runs as they went back to work in the bottom half of the fifth inning up two.

Qualls continued what Lundeen started, going three innings of no-hit softball and striking out six Falcon batters to match her teammates strikeout total going into Tuesday’s games against Wilsonville and Jesuit.  Both games will be at Jesuit High School 9am and 11:30am.

“It was good with everyone behind us.  It felt good because we actually did better hitting, we just did a lot better.  We were locking it down,” Qualls said.  “We pulled it together and did so well, I’m so really proud of us.  We just got to bring the energy (tomorrow) and bring our bats, bring the communication and energy as a team.”

Breanna Morris led the offense with six hits.  Puckett and Borzy each drove in 3RBI’s each in the two wins Monday at Mountainside High School.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald