Shadle Can Still Share Title
High school softball
The Shadle Park softball team won’t know until Monday if it has a share of the Greater Spokane League title.
But the Highlanders celebrated Friday as if they were league champions.
Jessica Murray’s three-hitter led second-place Shadle to a 4-0 upset win over first-place University at Shadle. The game was delayed approximately 20 minutes in the middle of the second inning because of hail and rain.
U-Hi (15-2) has already clinched a tie for the title but must get a victory Monday against third-place Lewis and Clark to win outright. Shadle (14-3) finishes with East Valley on Monday and is expected to win.
Whatever happens, the Highlanders like how they’re playing.
“It’ll give us some momentum,” Shadle senior catcher Dorthea Gooch said of Friday’s win, which came on the heels of a 1-0 loss to Mt. Spokane on Wednesday. “It shows we’re at our peak. It shows what we can do as a team.”
Murray, a junior right-hander, threw a complete game, striking out 11 and walking six. She didn’t allow a hit until Jill Oglesbee singled to lead off the fourth.
“I can’t even think I’m so excited,” Murray (14-3) said. “I wanted to win so bad and I knew I had to pitch my best ever.”
It wasn’t Murray’s best game of the season, said Highlanders coach Janie VandeBerg, but it was right up there.
It wasn’t Megan Owen’s best game, either. The Titans’ senior ace threw 5-1/3 innings, giving up three runs on six hits. Owen is 10-2 and it was only the third loss of her career.
“We didn’t come out with the right mindset,” Owen said. But she’s not worried about the Titans being ready to play Monday.
“We clinched the league championship, but we don’t want these guys to share it with us,” she said.
Shadle went ahead 1-0 in the first inning on Annie Boyd’s run-scoring double that brought in Katie Hoffman. Hoffman, the team’s No. 2 hitter, had tripled to left field with one out.
The Highlanders added three more in the fifth. One scored when Tara Malmquist, who had been caught in a rundown between third base and home, was hit in the back by a throw from third.
U-Hi left the bases loaded in the fifth. Murray walked Ahnee Wagner and Vanessa Shelton, then Owen singled to left to load the bases. Oglesbee struck out to end the inning.
VandeBerg had a good feeling about her team’s chances Friday.
“They were due,” she said. “We always seem to peak at the end of the year. They wanted it more than anything else in the world.”
Also in the league, Barb Draine hit a two-run triple in the third inning and Rogers (10-7) scored again in the sixth on the way to a 3-1 upset of third-place Lewis and Clark (11-6) at Rogers. LC is tied with Central Valley at 11-6 after Natalie Shields pitched a one-hitter with six strikeouts to lead the Bears over visiting Mt. Spokane (10-7) 4-2. Shields improved to 5-4 and also had a two-run single in the second. … April Skubinna struck out five in four innings as Gonzaga Prep (6-12) won 13-1 at North Central (1-16). Erica Naccarato went 2 for 5 with four RBIs and Chrissy Sterling had three hits and four RBIs.
Malina Strong went 3 for 5 on the day, including a two-run single in the seventh of the opener, and Deer Park (3-5) swept visiting Riverside 4-2, 4-1 in the Great Northern League. Alissa Major won both games, allowing just one extra-base hit on the day. Riverside is 1-7.
Rosie Parrott pitched a one-hitter and struck out eight, and Shannon McCormick drove in the only run as Post Falls (5-13 Border League) notched a 1-0 win at Sandpoint (2-14) 1-0 to lock up the No. 5 seed to the A-1 Region I tournament.