The Rainier softball team has had to grind through its share of slow starts this season, which made the lightning postponement that forced them home midway through the third inning of the Mountaineers’ district opener against Kalama — only to have to return to complete it Tuesday — literally a perfect storm.
“Two slow starts,” coach Katie Qualls said wryly afterward. “Perfect.”
And true to form, when the Mountaineers and Chinooks came back to Rec Park to resume their game Tuesday, Rainier took its time to get going again. But they got it going just when they needed to pouring in eight runs in the sixth to run away with an 8-2 win to advance to the double-elimination portion of the 2B district tournament.
“Them coming together, especially so late, I’m really proud of them,” Qualls said.
For a bit, it didn’t look like it ever would come together, and the bad starts would end up extending into a bad full game. Resuming play with two on in the bottom of the second inning, Rainier loaded the bases but popped out to end the threat.
From there, the Mountaineers went on a string of three frames where they got a runner to scoring position with less than two outs, only to run themselves out of the rally on the bases. The most egregious came in the fifth inning, with two on and no outs, when Rainier brought a run in from second on a deep fly ball to right, only to have her called out in the dugout when the Chinooks appealed as to whether she ever tagged up.
The sixth inning made it five innings in a row that Rainier got into scoring position, when Ryleigh Cruse led off with a stand-up double. An error in the field put two in scoring position with no outs, and this time, the Mountaineers played smart softball, with Raychel Hansen dropping down a perfect squeeze to put the C2BL’s No. 3 seed on the board.
“Raychel’s an awesome player, she’s great,” Qualls said. “She’s kind of been having a bit of a slump, so anytime we can get her energy up, it helps the entire team. She’s one of those upperclassmen who’s a leader, and I think they just want to show out for each other.”
Janess Blackburn followed that with an RBI double to tie things up at 2-2, and after a strikeout, Olivia Earsley untied it with an RBI single.
From there, the Mountaineers just kept going, with six straight hitters reaching base.
“We got a little bit more relaxed, a little bit of momentum,” Qualls said. “They executed when it counted.”
Cruse finished 4 for 4 at the plate, while Alyssa Lofgreen was 3 for 4 and Swenson, Earsley, and Hansen all had two-hit days.
The big frame finally held up the lineup’s end of the bargain and gave Cruse something to work with in the circle. After Kalama put up two unearned runs Monday evening in the top of the first thanks to two Rainier errors, the eighth grader shut things down entirely, giving up just one hit and one walk in her first-ever District outing.
“She really settled in,” Qualls said. “She’s feeling a lot better, she was having some back stuff going on a couple weeks back. And she’s young; this is her first experience with Districts. She wanted to show up for the seniors and the upperclassmen, and I think she wanted to impress everyone.”
Rainier will live to see another day, taking on Forks — the No. 2 team out of the Pacific 2B League — Wednesday at Fort Borst Park. The Mountaineers are guaranteed at least one game after that, later on Wednesday.
