With a few in-game breakthroughs powering its confidence, the Forest Grove softball team clawed out a narrow 2-1 home victory over Glencoe and heated up the Pacific Conference race even more on Friday night.
This valuable win came for the Vikings (14-5, 5-1 Pacific) by pushing through any mistakes they made early.
With bases loaded for Forest Grove, second baseman Alise Morency came up with the game-winning RBI with two outs in the bottom of the fifth.
“That was a clutch play with two outs,” Forest Grove coach Jeremy Ingram said. “Bases loaded. We gotta get one run out of that, and she came through. She’s really level headed. Nothing really affects her. So that was a clutch at-bat by Alise.”
And that clutch hit topped off a strong team performance with seven total hits as a team with Paola Reyes Figuera getting an RBI single in the bottom of second.
Starting pitcher Kherington Wright also ousted any hopes for Glencoe (14-6, 4-2) in the top of the seventh with two of her four strikeouts coming in the top of seventh.
“A total team effort for us today,” Ingram said. “We didn’t play perfect, but we didn’t let the mistakes affect us. We stayed in the game and got a little bit of something from a lot of girls today.”
That brewing confidence came through in the third inning with Ingram intentionally walking Crimson Tide senior Irene VanDyke to load up the bases with only one out and the Vikings were leading 1-0.
“(VanDyke) is one of the best players in our league,” Ingram said.“We had an open base. We felt more confident with the two girls behind her than we did throwing to her.”
He added: “Us coaches were talking about. Questioning it. But we went with our guts and it paid off.”
After walking VanDyke, the Vikings got consecutive outs to pay off Ingram’s gamble and let his players know the trust he has in them.
“I think our coach does believe in us, and he knows we have a solid defense,” Forest Grove shortstop Kailea Takahashi said. “We work on it a lot, and it definitely is nerve wracking to load our bases, but it’s the right move, and we stopped them from scoring.”
Takahashi also started some strong routine plays by nabbing some runners at first, including a double play in the bottom of the third by being the main proponent of a double play at second and first base.
But even with some of her strong play, she was happy to see her teammates stepping up with Wright to highlight.
“She’s a great pitcher, especially for how young she is,” Takahashi said about Wright. “She doesn’t let anything faze her. So even if she’s walking batters, she’s still throwing it. I think she trusts as the defense. And knowing that she can out-pitch all these batters is amazing.”
She added: “A big win for us. Our team has a hard time keeping our energy up at the beginning of games, and this is going to be a big step for us. First was Sherwood, and it’s a close game. This is a close game to a really good team. This is going to help drive us forward.”
And with Forest Grove riding the momentum, Glencoe always looked like it could take the lead in any inning with coach Wade Sahlfeld giving props to the Vikings.
“It is always going to come down to one or two runs with them,” Sahlfeld said. “Because they’re just so scrappy. They’re not afraid of anything, and I really commend Jeremy Ingram about that, no matter what, you know they’re gonna come to play so I got to do a better job as a coach to get my players ready for that.”
Makena Petrick got Glencoe’s lone run thanks to an error in the infield after catcher Kenley Wright overthrew third base.
All game it felt like momentum could shift in the Crimson Tide’s favor with Tuesday Mevis calmly catching back-to-back line drives out to center field before Morency’s RBI.
“I thought we had some good momentum here and there,” Sahlfeld said. But you gotta tip your cap. Every time you thought the momentum would change, they did something. They made a play. What it comes down to is they made plays and we didn’t.”
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