By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
STAYTON, Ore.– The Stayton softball team came out firing against their rival in Cascade Thursday afternoon.
Coming off their 10-0 in six-inning defeat to the Cougars on April 21 in Turner, the Eagles held the Cougars to one run in the opening four innings of the Oregon West Conference game at Stayton High School.
Of those opening 12 outs, Brookleynn Morley was the workhorse in making the outs as the senior made five of those outs from her Center Field position In the game, there was only one strikeout by the Eagle pitching staff, so it was up to the field behind and around them to back-up their pitchers who were getting the balls to them on this day.
“I was really happy with all of us, we all communicated really well and I think it was important for us to support our pitchers because they’re working hard for us so we need to work hard for them,” Morley said. “(Cascade’s) going to hit the ball, they’re a good hitting team. We did good that we did that.”
And the Eagle bats factored in how good the Cougar bats were. Within the first two innings of the game, Stayton wheeled off six runs to lead 6-1 after two innings. With Cascade coming in 18-0 on the year, the Eagles knew the importance of staying in it until the end. Especially that’s how Cascade decided the first meeting when they scored eight runs in the sixth inning to seal that victory.
And the Cougars did rally the bats. Scoring twice in the fifth inning, off a Malia Scanlan solo home run and a Lexie Gidcumb RBI single, Cascade cut the lead down to 6-3 going into the bottom half of the fifth inning. Stayton scored three to push their lead to 9-3 by innings end, the Cougars got one back in the top half of the sixth inning, trailing the Eagles 9-4 going into the bottom half of the inning. But the Eagles proved too much as they scored five more runs to end the game 14-4 and handing Cascade their first defeat of the season and in OWC league play.
“We were hitting the ball hard, we were putting the ball in places and they were making good plays today. That’s all we could really do. We got the runs that we got because we stayed gritty and we stayed in it for sure. I think another day, it’ll go a different way,” said Scanlan.
Scanlan led the Cougars, who will host Newport on Monday, with two runs driven in and had a team-high three hits. Morely led Stayton, who will head to Sweet Home on Monday, with three hits and three runs driven it.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
