The Puget Sound softball team continued their early season struggle this past weekend against Whitworth, dropping four games to the Pirates. Although the Loggers could not come away with a win against Whitworth, the team fought hard in all four contests.
On Saturday, the Loggers fell behind early 4-0 in game one, but began to battle back on the strength of a two-run home run from junior Chrissy Atterson (Marysville, Wash.) in the third. Puget Sound struck again in the fourth as junior Joleen Monifilleto (Everett, Wash.) doubled home freshman Jenica Holt (Pleasanton, Calif.) to make it a 4-3 game.
Whitworth put up two more runs in the sixth with a pair of doubles that proved to be the difference in the game. The Loggers added one more run in the seventh on an RBI single from senior Christina Demuelenaere (Lake Stevens, Wash.) but could not push across any more and fell by a score of 6-4 in the opener.
Game two proved to be even more exciting as it took ten innings to decide the winner.
Both teams came out hot and sat at a 4-4 tie after the third. The Pirates took the lead back in the fourth with one run and added another in the fifth and two in the sixth. Heading into the bottom of the seventh, the Loggers trailed 9-7. Atterson came up big for Puget Sound, hitting her second home run of the day to bring the deficit to one.
Junior Aryn Grause (Corvallis, Ore.) later scored on a Whitworth error to tie the game up and send it to extra innings. Whitworth countered in the top of the eighth with a solo home run, but a single in the bottom half of the inning by Demuelenaere drove in Monifilleto to tie the game up again and push it into the ninth. The score remained deadlocked until Whitworth posted a 3-run top of the tenth.
The Loggers were unable to return the favor and fell by a score of 12-9 in game two.
Sunday had all of the same excitement, but unfortunately for Puget Sound, also had the same results.
Whitworth started out game one swinging the bats well and jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second and added one more in the third. Puget Sound put up two runs of their own in the bottom half of the third as Atterson drove in Demuelenaere and Holt with a double. Whitworth tacked on two more later in the game and kept the Loggers’ bats silent to cap off the 6-2 victory.
Whitworth sprung out to another 3-0 lead in game three after the first inning and added another three runs in the fourth. In the bottom of the fourth, the Loggers strung together three RBI singles to cut the Pirates’ lead to 6-3. Whitworth piled on four more runs throughout the game, putting the Loggers in a tough spot in the seventh. Puget Sound kept things interesting, loading the bases and pushing three runs across on a walk, wild pitch and an RBI single by Demuelenaere.
However, the Loggers’ rally was cut short and Whitworth closed out the four game sweep of Puget Sound. Despite the losses, the effort and heart demonstrated by the Loggers was reason for optimism.
“It was really nice to see the team battle hard all the way through the seventh inning in every game and never give up even when we were behind. I think that even though we lost, they were all hard played games,” Atterson said.
Although the Loggers have had a rough 0-8 start, there are plenty of games left on the schedule for the team to turn things around. Puget Sound will take the field again this weekend to face George Fox and Pacific in a make-up series for last week’s cancellations.