Medical Lake's Hannah Petek wings the ball back into the infield following a Lakeland base hit this past Monday in the Cardinals' 11-1 nonleague loss to the Hawks.
The bats were either booming, or deathly quiet last week for the Medical Lake girls' softball team.
The week started and ended in a similar fashion - with one-sided losses and dominating pitching performances by the opposition. In those games, the Cardinals were beaten 12-3 by Chewelah in a Northeast A League game April 14 and 11-1 by visiting Lakeland from Rathdrum, Idaho in an April 20 nonleague outing.
Sandwiched in between was a doubleheader sweep of Freeman 15-4 and 14-4 last Saturday in Medical Lake.
"We were outplayed up in the Chewelah game," Medical Lake head coach Tim Blakely said. "They shut down our offensive attack, while our defense made some mistakes and Chewelah took full advantage of that."
Chewelah (1-4 NEA, 5-4 overall) erased a 1-0 Medical Lake lead with a pair of runs in the bottom of the first and scored in every inning but the seventh. Jaelynn Skok hurt the Cardinals both at the plate where she went 3 for 4 and on the mound by tossing six strikeouts. Krislyn Koler was 4 for 4.
Glori Cheevers and Chelsea Hamby each had a pair of hits for Medical Lake with one of Cheevers' hits being a triple.
Cheevers continued her long-ball hitting in the opening game of Saturday's pair, smacking a two-run home run to left field in the bottom of the fourth inning to put the Cardinals up 12-4. She finished the morning going 3 for 4 with the homer, a single and a double and three RBIs.
Medical Lake (4-1, 5-2) scored six runs in their first at bat and were never threatened.
"Our bats at times can be very explosive, with lots of extra base hits," Blakely said. "The offense had a good day." Hamby finished 2 for 4 with a double. Hannah Petek and Alex Steinmetz both went 2 for 3 with Petek adding three RBIs and Steinmetz contributing two.
Lorren Johnson was brought up from the junior varsity team and caught both games. "She did a good job behind the plate for us," Blakely said.
In the second game the Cardinals' explosion came a little later, this time in the third inning for eight runs as Medical Lake sent 14 batters to the plate. Taylor Pavao caught fire in the second game going 3 for 3 with a triple.
In Monday's contest with the Lakeland Hawks, the Cardinals trailed early and were held in check by the pitching duo of Brittany Charles and Kari Prockish who surrendered just one hit. "Lakeland pitching almost completely shut down our offense," Blakely said. Cheevers' single was the lone ML hit.
This week's games are all on the road and included an April 21 trip to Riverside (1-2, 6-2) followed by doubleheader Saturday at Lakeside (5-0, 8-2) beginning at 3 p.m.
"With first place up for grabs we have to play our best softball throughout the rest of the season," Blakely said. "Lakeside is a very good team, we will have to come to the softball field and be prepared for every game."
Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].
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