League champs has nice ring for Lady Blackhawks

Cheney High’s softball team accomplished a major goal last week — one every Lady Blackhawks team sets at the beginning of the season, but never attained in the 23 years the sport has been played at the high school.

Julia Boyd turned in a two-hit shutout, and Cheney produced just enough offense to take advantage of eight East Valley errors and down the visiting Knights 10-0 last Tuesday. In the process, Cheney’s softball program won its first league title at any level — Great Northern League, Frontier League, Border League or Greater Spokane League.

The euphoria may have been too much as three days later the Lady Blackhawks dropped their first game of the season, a 17-16 loss in game two of a doubleheader at Pullman. “When you’ve got a major goal and you achieve it, there’s always a little bit of a let down afterwards,” head coach Gary Blake said of the title and subsequent loss.

And there was also that four-letter word coaches dread — p-r-o-m.

Tuesday carried no such distractions from the annual spring rhythmic ceremonial ritual. Rachel Barsness gave Cheney all it would need against the Knights, stroking a first inning, lead-off home run, her first round-tripper of the year.

The sophomore went 3 for 4 with an RBI and three runs scored, while Maddie Kallsen also went 3 for 4 with a double and two RBIs and Cheyenne Wright was 1 for 3 with two RBIs, scoring three runs. Boyd pitched another gem on the mound, striking out nine and walking two, throwing 67 percent strikes.

“It was just an all around performance,” Blake said of the title-clinching win. “Every aspect of the game was there.”

Boyd stretched her record to 12-0 and the Lady Blackhawks pounded out 22 hits in a 21-3 game one win Friday at Pullman. The senior gave up seven hits, walked two and struck out eight, throwing 63 percent strikes.

Offensively Barsness was 5 for 5 with a double, Cheyenne Hanson 4 for 5 with a double and Meghan Krantz 3 for 5 with a triple, solo home run and three RBIs. Cheney took advantage of seven Greyhound errors while committing no miscues.

But in game two, Blake said you could see the focus wasn’t quite there anymore. Kallsen struggled on the mound, getting just one out before being lifted in the first inning for Boyd.

Boyd pitched well until the fifth when Blake said you could see her steam beginning to diminish, and the “movement pitches, not moving.” Pullman scored four times in the inning to tie the game, but Cheney managed a run in the sixth and seventh to take a 16-14 lead before the Greyhounds’ Halley Ghigleri produced a two-RBI, game-winning triple in the bottom of the seventh.

Krantz had four hits, including two more home runs — three on the day — and a pair of RBIs. Adriana Suiter added three hits, including a home run, as did Kallsen, with Barsness, Boyd, Hanson and Cassie Schliep each with two hits.

Cheney is now 17-1 overall, 13-1 in GNL play with two games remaining, Tuesday at West Valley and Wednesday’s regular-season finale against Clarkston in Cheney.

The Lady Blackhawks are still playing well, on the mound, in the field where they have a .929 fielding percentage and at the plate where they are averaging 18.5 hits per seven innings. For Blake, how his team responds to the Pullman loss may be an indicator of future success.

“Will they be tentative, or come out like it was just a bump in the road and get back to how they were playing before?” he asked.

Perfect season gone, Cheney still has a lot to play for, including being the first ever to win a district title for the school. No matter what happens though, there is one thing that can never be taken away.

“They will always be the team that won that first league title for Cheney,” Blake said.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].