Medical Lake softball season ends at Chewelah

As if it wasn’t enough to see Chewelah’s Jaelyn Skok whizzing pitches from 40 feet out, the Medical Lake Cardinals got to feel the effects of her bat as well.

Skok had three hits to aid her cause in the Cougars’ 12-8 district softball playoff loser-out game win over the Cardinals May 12 in Chewelah (16-5). Earlier in the week on May 9, Skok scattered six hits in a 7-0 victory in the final Northeast A League game of the season for the teams.

“The first four innings we just came out flat again,” head coach Tim Blakely said. But when they did, Medical Lake found Skok’s weakness just long enough to maybe put a scare in her.

Medical Lake scored five runs in the fifth inning and three more in the sixth to close to within 9-8, but then Skok regained control to send the Cards (8-9) down without a hit in the top of the seventh.

That big inning started after Allison Duncan and Alex Steinmetz singled and Kaylee Thompson, the No. 9 hitter in the lineup, doubled them home. Hailey Hostetter drove in a run with a single and pitcher Suzanne Shores cracked an opposite-field two-run home run. Shores went 3 for 4 on the day.

The hot bats stayed alive the sixth. Taylor Pavao got on with an error, Duncan singled and Steinmetz moved the runners with a fielder’s choice. Ashlyn Tamietti’s triple cleared the bases and Hostetter singled to score Tamietti.

“We were kinda’ dialed in on her,” Blakely said of Skok, but Chewelah iced it scoring three runs in their half of the sixth.

It was much the same script in the first meeting between the two.

“We just came out flat, I’m not sure why,” Blakely said. “We just did not get the bats off our shoulder.” Of Medical Lake’s half-dozen hits, Hostetter had two.

Medical Lake left a lot of runners on base, Blakely said. “We were wanting that timely hitting and just didn’t get it,” he added.

Attention now turns to the offseason, which for a number of the team members is no vacation as they play club softball. Blakely said he is exploring the idea, again, of forming a summer league but that depends on interest.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].