Saints lose lead, slip to 13-12 after split

On Saturday, the Mt. Hood softball team split its two home games against Clark Community College. In Game One, the Saints were rolling, winning 11-3. Game Two was a nail-biter that saw Clark come from two runs behind in the sixth inning, to win 4-3.

The split left Mt. Hood at 13-12 overall and 5-9 in South Region play, good for sixth place in the South, through Thursday.

Saints pitcher Sammie Byron was on the mound in the opener. She pitched a strong, complete game, allowing just five hits and three runs while striking out four. After the game she said, “I just came out knowing that they were a good team and knew that we had to be on the top of our game. We came out with lots of energy and fire and having my team behind me helps get through games.”

Through three innings, Mt. Hood led 6-1, thanks to a four-run third inning. Madelyn Lindhorst brought in three of those runs with a key bases-loaded double. In the top of the fifth, Clark pulled within three runs, until the Saints’ Jazmayne Williams hit a solo home run to extend the lead to 7-3.

In the bottom of the sixth, the Saints added four more runs to notch the runaway victory.

Lindhorst and Williams combined for six of the team’s 11 RBIs.

In Game Two, Mt. Hood sent Cheyenne Vance to the mound to start the game. She went five innings, allowing just four hits and one run. Heading into the sixth, the Saints held a 3-1 lead. Karli Butler brought Mt. Hood’s first run of the game in with a sacrifice fly in the first. In the fourth Grace Helyer launched a solo home run, for a 2-1 lead, and in the fifth, Lexi Patino added an RBI single, scoring Meagan Bratcher.

With the Saints leading 3-1, they called on Byron, the winning pitcher in Game One, to finish the contest. Against the first batter she faced she got ahead in the count, no balls and two strikes, before giving up a solo home run. A few batters later, with runners on second and third base with two outs, the Penguins came up with their biggest hit of the day, a two-run double.

Two batters later Byron would get the Saints out of the inning, but the damage was already done, as Mt. Hood trailed 4-3.

“Seeing a pitcher for (six) innings you adjust to them and what they are throwing,” Byron said afterward. “So, when I went in the second game, I had to mix things up and try to get them off balance” – which almost worked as she wanted.

In the top of the seventh inning, she put the Clark batters down in order.

The Saints would get just one runner on in the seventh and failed to bring across the needed tying run.

On Tuesday, Mt. Hood’s scheduled doubleheader against Lower Columbia Community College at home was postponed due to wet field conditions.

On Saturday, the Saints travel to Longview, Washington, to take on Lower Columbia Community College in a doubleheader that starts at 9 a.m.