It had been 17 months since the last time Sweet Home’s softball team took the field at home, and they made it count Thursday, Oct. 8, with an 11-6 win over Harrisburg.
After Harrisburg took a 2-0 lead off Sweet Home starter Savannah Hutchins, Maddie Harris led off in the bottom of the first with a double to left field and the Huskies were on their way, scoring three runs in the first inning and adding four more in the second as Sweet Home pitchers shut down the Eagles through the next two innings.
Harrisburg scored two in the fourth and another two in the sixth, but the Huskies kept the pressure on with two runs of their own in both the fourth and fifth to put the game away.
Bailee Hartsook, who doubled for Sweet Home in the second, delivered a big hit in the fourth with a home run shot over the left field fence.
Head Coach Karyn Hartsook was out of town, so assistant Mike White managed the team which, he said, has come “a long ways” in two weeks of practice.
“A lot of the veterans are pretty rusty, but they did a good job,” he said. “We’ll keep improving as we go.
“We have four girls who haven’t played before. Someone else might look at them and go, ‘Oh man, they’re rusty,’ but looking at it from the coaching standpoint, we’re going, ‘No, there’s a huge improvement. They’re really doing good.'”
Sophomore Brooke Burke, who missed a chance to play as a freshman, thanks to the COVID shutdown, made her unofficial varsity debut count singled and then stole second before scoring on a passed ball, and junior Mykal Johnston, also a varsity rookie, finished 2 for 3 at the plate .
“Overall, it was a good team effort,” White said.
The Huskies were scheduled to play Tuesday afternoon, Oct. 13, at Santiam Christian and will host Santiam Christian in a home game Thursday, Oct. 15.
Games are open to spectators, but the high school requests that they be limited to immediate family members of the athletes.
“We have lots of games on the schedule now.”