By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
KEIZER, Ore.– The McNary softball team picked up the pace in the second half of Tuesday’s regular season finale and Senior Day game against Dallas at McNary High School.
The game lived up to the billing to start. Two playoff teams with the Celtics in 6A and Dragons in 5A that saw the first three-and-a-half innings go back and forth with defensive plays and clutch hits that saw Dallas ahead 3-2 going into the bottom half of the fourth inning.
Grace Walls and Kadence Tullock each hit solo home runs over that span.
“These types of games at the end of the season are super important to prepare going into the playoffs. We always want to play good teams and it was good competition the first half of the game and we just didn’t play the way that we’re capable of playing,” starts Dallas’ Head Coach Brandi Jackson. “Gotta learn, gotta respond and prepare for what we want our playoff run to look like.”
It was the bottom half of the fourth inning in which the Celtics began to turn the game into their favor. McNary just put the ball in play and forced Dallas to make the plays and get the outs. Hits, uncharacteristic plays by the Dragon defense had resulted in the Celtics retake the lead going into the fifth and McNary was just able to tack onto their lead over the course of the final few frames of the game.
And the momentum offensively, seeing runs coming across the board, allowed the defense to settle back down and play Celtic Softball in what would become a 8-3 McNary victory on Tuesday to close out their regular season 19-6 overall going into the 6A State Playoffs riding high.
“That energy switch. We had a team huddle, and we needed that energy, and once that was made, we locked in, and our bats came alive,” said McNary’s Beth Tavares. “(We need) continuous energy throughout the game. Coming out strong and ending strong.”
Tavares, Josalyn Netzel, and Natalie Macik each led the McNary offense with two hits each. Macik drove in a game-high three runs and had a solo home run in the victory. Ashlyn Wittnebel struck out six batters for McNary.
The Dragons, who will play The Dalles/Dufur on Thursday to close out the regular season, were led by Harlow Nelson offensively. Nelson had a team-high two hits to lead a Dallas offense that collected eight hits in the game. Madi Ruman struck out five batters for the Dragons and four-and-two-third innings pitching.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
