Already staring down several postponements from this week, the Centralia softball team moved its date with Rochester down the road to Rec Park in Chehalis, and gutted out a 3-0 win Wednesday afternoon, snapping a two-game losing streak.
After opening the 2A Evergreen Conference season with three straight wins, the Tigers came back from spring break a bit lethargic, dropping contests to Aberdeen and Shelton on the road last week.
With a renewed focus, and an emphasis on cleaning up some errors, the Tigers put those losses firmly behind them Wednesday afternoon, in some drizzly conditions.
“The energy is back and we’re starting to hit the ball a little better,” Centralia coach David Orr said. “When we came back from break, it just seemed like everything was gone. We had a lot of errors, we’ve been working hard and taking extra time before games to get loose.
“I told them after the Shelton game that there couldn’t be any more of that. You’ve shown your capabilities and we have to get back to that. They took that to heart and have been working their butts off, this is on them.”
Wednesday afternoon’s showdown was a pitcher’s duel early, with Rochester’s Layna Demers and Centralia’s Peyton Smith putting up a whole lot of zeros in the first three innings before the Tiger offense finally came through in the fourth.
Judy Vallejo opened the fourth inning with a double, and two at-bats later, Jimena Luis broke the stalemate with another double to score Vallejo and put the Tigers ahead, 1-0.
In the following inning, Lauren Wasson tripled the Tiger lead with a crushed ball past the left-centerfield fence, scoring Brooklyn Sprague from second.
That three-run lead would turn out to be enough, thanks to a complete game shutout performance from Smith in the mound, and a tidy defense behind her.
Smith allowed just four hits and walked one batter with two strikeouts in the shutout outing.
Behind her, the Tigers committed two errors in the third inning, allowing a Warrior runner to advance all the way to third, but got out of the inning unscathed and cleaned it up after that.
“In the last couple of games, even some of the games we won, the errors seem to snowball,” Orr said. “We had a couple of errors in that inning, but they bounced back quickly. They’ve been doing a lot of repetition and been working on their mental game a lot. They didn’t get in that quicksand, they got out of it. That was a big win, a couple of errors didn’t bring us down. If we can keep that mindset we’ll be good for the rest of the year.”
Vallejo and Luis finished with two hits a piece to lead the Tigers at the plate.
On the other side, Rochester is still looking to find its offensive rhythm after getting shut out for the second consecutive game. The Warriors haven’t scored a run in 18 innings, after a 2-0 loss to Tumwater and a 6-2 loss to W.F. West that saw them score in the second and third innings.
Layna Demers was a highlight in the circle, pitching a complete game and allowing three runs on eight hits with one walk and four strikeouts. Macey Fluetsch, Roisin Stull, McKenna Vassar, and Jessa Lenzi each had a hit for the Warriors.
After back-to-back losses on the road out of spring break, the Tigers picked up a big win, putting them at 4-2 as the second go-around of league play begins — with some contests still to be made-up due to rainouts.
“Rochester’s was on my list of one of the top teams in the league,” Orr said. “They were a team we needed to get over the hump against. This was a huge game for us. It’s going to build momentum for us.”
Centralia is tentatively scheduled to play Tumwater Thursday on the road, while Rochester looks to make up a game against Black Hills at home.
