Sweet Home’s softball team opened its season with two wins, downing Newport 3-0 on the road Tuesday, March 18, and beating Cascade 2-1 at home Thursday. ——–
“I feel real good about how it’s all coming together,” said first-year head coach Shane Cochran. “The younger girls are coming along real good and they work well with the older girls.
“We’re actually quite a bit more competitive than what I was expecting for the first two games. We’re definitely not off to a slow start.”
Sweet Home 2, Cascade 1
Against the Cougars, Sweet Home opened with a score in the bottom of the first. Cascade came through with a run of its own in the third, but the Huskies scored again in the fourth and Emily Marchbanks finished the Cougars off from the mound.
Marchbanks also delivered the big hit of the game, doubling in a run, Cochran said.
“When we had some opportunities to score, we ended up scoring. That was the difference in the game,” he said. “We can do a lot better at the plante. We’re going to work on our offense pretty hard this week. I have no complaints on defense, but we need to get a few more girls hitting balls into gaps instead of straight to people.”
Cascade 001 000 – 1
Sweet Home 100 100 – 2
Sweet Home 3, Newport 0
The Huskies got off to a fast start against Newport, as Katie Virtue scored a run in the first and then it became a pitcher’s duel as Emily Marchbanks held the Cubs to two hits.
Sweet Home scored two more runs in the bottom of the sixth, after which Marchbanks shut down Newport to put the game on ice.
“McKenzie was throwing a lot of hard stuff and her off-speed pitches were working good,” Cochran said. “Their pitcher, she’s a good one. We just came out here and scored three runs. We had very few errors. We just made the plays.”
Sweet Home 100 002 – 3
Newport 000 000 – 0
Weather permitting, the Huskies play next at Corvallis, at 4 p.m. Friday, before hosting a veteran Blanchet Catholic team with good pitching on Saturday at 11 a.m., and then Stayton at 4:30 p.m. Monday, March 31.