By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SCIO, Ore.– The Amity softball team came into their 3A Special District 3 league match-up against Scio on a three-game winning streak.
Coming off their Spring Break trip to Medford, where they saw the improvement from last year’s performance down in Southern Oregon and built some momentum going into league play. The Warriors opened up league with energy and it paid off with wins over Jefferson, Santiam Christian and Taft and the squad has the potential to contend for the Top 4 in probably the hardest league in the 3A Classification with the Loggers, Yamhill-Carlton, Dayton and Willamina all eyeing for deep playoff runs themselves later this season.
“Coming back and playing league, we’ve been on fire. That energy level has been going, going, going, and moving forward, we’re right there. I think we’re going to give Dayton a run for their money when we play them next week, Dayton’s always pretty tough on us and playing them at home, we’re pretty fired up,” said Amity Head Coach Jennifer Kendall. “I think we’re Top 4 material, I think we’ll get a State Spot, I’m positive of it. These girls, when they’re on, they’re on. They’re hitting the ball, we didn’t hit today, but they’ve been hitting the crap out of the ball, and I’m proud of them hitting today.”
Scio slowed down the Warrior bats tredmously Thursday, holding Amity to two hits in what would be a 15-0 Logger win in three innings. Myleigh Cooper struck out seven Warrior batters in the run-ruled shortened game, and Cam Dalke led Scio with five runs driven in, four coming off of a Grand Slam in the bottom half of the second inning. The Loggers scored 11 runs in the bottom half of the inning off of five hits and took advantage of a few walks and errors to help pull away early.
Sitting at 8-0 on the year and 4-0 in league play, the Loggers have built up some momentum of their own going into a big week ahead with Dayton on Tuesday on the road and Willamina back on home on Wednesday. Both the Pirates and Bulldogs are sitting a game behind Scio in the league standings going into this next week.
“Getting these games in the rain regardless was good, regardless of the type of caliber of team that we play. When we face Dayton, we’re just going to go in like we have all season and not back down from our competition,” said Dalke.
Maee Ferrando drove in four runs, and Macy Johnson drove in another two for the Loggers. Marti Silacci and Emma Northrop each collected a hit for Amity, who will play host to Gaston on Saturday before traveling to Blanchet on Monday.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
