By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SCIO, Ore.–  Everything just fell into place for the Jefferson softball team late Tuesday afternoon against Santiam.

Coming off a rainy 9-5 win over Gaston, a win that saw the Greyhounds rally to make it interesting late, the Lions couldn’t quite shake the early game lull to the Wolverines in their second game of their doubleheader as fast as they hoped.  Falling behind 6-0 going into the bottom half of the fourth inning before turning it on in that bottom half inning.

Hits began to build and runs began to score.  Nayeli Hart had an RBI hit,Jayden O’Neil and Paytonlynn Baldwin each drove in two runs each to start the rally that ended with the Jefferson softball team leading 8-6 by the end of the frame.  It was momentum that the squad carried into the remainder of their 15-7 to close out two tough wins in the Scio Round Robin and a 4-0 start to the season..

“Our coach was pushing that we need to have more energy. I think it took a couple of innings to kick in, but we came in clutch when we needed to and hits are contagious, catching is contagious and when you do it once, you’ll do it a hundred-times afterwards because you feel that once and you want to do it again,” O’Neil said.  “It felt really good…it felt really good to watch everyone succeed and everyone was not as timid as they were before and were confident in themselves.

“These two games helped us gain more traction for our league start against Scio next week. It’s a good start.”

For Santiam, it was a good learning experience of finishing games.  They started hot, but got complacent with the lead points Makayla Dodge, and with two games Wednesday against Harrisburg at noon and Gaston at 4pm.back at Scio, the opportunity is there for the squad to answer the bell and rebound from Tuesday’s defeat.

“To not give up because we had a good inning going on in the fourth…(Wednesday) will be really good because it’ll show people that we can actually win games and are capable of doing it.  We just got to keep up with the work, we got to stay confident,” Dodge said, who had two home runs in the game Wednesday.

The Lions play Harrisburg at 2pm at Scio High School.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald