By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SILVERTON, Ore.– The Dallas softball team overcame a slow start to Wednesday’s Mid-Willamette Conference game with Silverton.
Like really slow.
After surrendering a three-spot to open the game, trailing the Foxes 3-0 after one inning, the Dragons settled in defensively and pitched two shutout innings to buy their offense some time to come around. And when they did, they really came around.
The top half of the fourth inning was their spark with the bats. Their three run third inning, which featured an RBI single by Harlow Nelson and a Kadence Tullock two-run double, had tied the game up at three going into the bottom half of the fourth inning.
Lexington Rains put Silverton back ahead, going into the fifth, the Foxes’ leading 4-3 at that time. But that was the last time that Silverton led in this one as Dallas pulled ahead for the first time in the top half of the fifth inning and never looked back. That Rains single was the last Foxes score as the Dragons finished the game, scoring the game’s final six runs to hand the Foxes their first MWC conference defeat of the year. It was the second win for Dallas against Silverton as the two squads met last month in a non-league contest.
“It was huge. It gave us a lot of confidence, just being able to know what to do, we’ve already played them once, and we already know what to do against her. We know how to handle it. It just took us a second,” said the Dragons Grace Walls. “We’ve had a tough start at the beginning of the season, but we’ve been improving. Communication, we’ve been growing closer as a program and just person-to-person. We’ve all improved throughout the line-up.”
Walls hit a three-run home run in the top half of the seventh inning to help give the Dallas some more of a cushion in their 9-4 victory, turning a once 6-4 lead into what would be the final result.
For Silverton, who entered the game undefeated in league play, it served as a good learning experience. Those early innings were great. They just needed to string them together for a full seven against those quality teams like Dallas. Something that they are looking forward to working on as they now prepare for Lebanon on Friday.
“We definitely came into the game wanting to beat them because they’re our biggest rivals, but I feel like next time we play them, we know what to do,” said Silverton’s McKenzee Petersen. “We just made a couple of errors, and that just carried on throughout the game. It affected our attitude, our heads weren’t in it all the way… Just keeping positive mindsets, just get base hits when we need them. Clean defense.”
Dallas will host South Albany on Friday.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
