ROCHESTER — Playing with its backs against the wall, the Centralia softball team rallied past Rochester after withstanding an early barrage, defeating the Warriors on the road, 10-7 Wednesday afternoon.
The win clinches a district spot for the Tigers for the first time since 2018, David Orr’s first season as head coach.
“We weren’t perfect,” Orr said. “We didn’t play our best game but we still came out on top. The baserunning was huge for us and the middle of our lineup is starting to click.”
The Tigers got ahead thanks to four massive RBIs from shortstop Makayla Chavez, who helped Centralia take a 5-3 lead in the fifth thanks to a second 2-RBI double, and stayed there by putting pressure on the Warrior infield, forcing mistakes with aggressive baserunning.
Chavez ended the day going 3 for 4 with four RBIs, and the Tigers took advantage of six Warrior errors, mostly in the later innings.
“They were really loose,” Orr said. “I was worried about all the warpaint they had on but they were loose coming in and wanted to come in, play the game, and were just thinking about winning. It’s such a mental game. If you can go out there and have fun, good things happen.”
In the circle, Hollynn Wakefield pitched all but one inning, with Peyton Smith stepping in to pitch a scoreless middle inning. Wakefield allowed six runs, but with just one earned, on nine hits and five walks with seven strikeouts.
On the other end, the Warriors, which thought they were playing for their season Wednesday afternoon, lamented the mistakes in the later innings, and a tough start in league play during the middle stretch of the season.
“That’s the one thing that’s been strong for us all year was our defense,” Rochester coach Joni Lancaster said. “I don’t know if the pressure got to us, we have a lot of seniors and expected to do well this year and we were in a bind early in the season. Centralia didn’t beat us, Rochester beat us. It is what it is.”
Layna Demers tossed a complete game, with just three of the 10 runs scored earned against her with nine strikeouts and four walks. Macey Fluetsch went 2 for 4 with a run scored and an RBI, and Cheyenne Justice went 2 for 4 with a run scored.
Though Rochester thought its season was over Wednesday afternoon, with players consoling one another and Lancaster thanking her seniors for their hard work over the course of their playing careers after the game, a late email delivered to 2A Evergreen Conference athletic directors confirmed that the Warriors’ season is not over.
Most league coaches were under the assumption heading into Wednesday’s games that W.F. West (13-7, 7-5 2A EvCo) owned a tiebreaker over Rochester (9-10, 7-5 2A EvCo), due to a 2-1 record over the Warriors during the regular season. But because one of those games was counted as a non-league contest, and the league chose to only use that non-league contest as a tiebreaker if it were for seeding purposes alone and didn’t eliminate a team, the Warriors are still alive.
As of Wednesday night, the Warriors are slated to play in a play-in game with W.F. West Friday for the final district spot and the EvCo’s fourth seed.
By virtue of a head-to-head tiebreaker, with Centralia (11-7, 7-5 2A EvCo) combining to go 3-1 against the Bearcats and Warriors in league games throughout the season and with an identical league record, the Tigers clinched the No. 3 spot in the league order.
W.F. West combined to go 2-2 against Rochester and Centralia in league games, and the Warriors went 1-3.
Either way, the Tigers are locked into the district picture for the first time since 2018, and captured pivotal wins against Tumwater and Rochester to get to this point.
“They’re hungry, they wanted it,” Orr said. “We’re going to be back to work tomorrow, I’m not even sure who we’re playing next but it doesn’t matter, we’re just going to play our game.”
