By Alex Tam
With its top player Katlyn Peters out of the lineup for family reasons, the Wilsonville softball team provided a glimpse of the future.
The Wildcats played spoiler against a St. Helens team looking to make the state playoffs, but Wilsonville continued its strong play against the Lions, winning 7-3 on Friday at Wilsonville High School.
The win broke a four-game losing streak as the Wildcats won the season series over St. Helens, winning two of three games.
Wilsonville improved to 4-15 overall and 4-14 in Northwest Oregon Conference play, already marking continued improvement with three more wins than last season with one week left.
“It was a very good outing,” coach Dan Kane said. “It was good to get another win from St. Helens to kind of knock them out of their opportunity to get into fourth place in the playoffs so we helped Sherwood out a little bit, which is good to help out the other smaller schools even though it’s our rival.”
Wilsonville sophomore Sarah Bates continued her development on the mound, going seven innings, allowing just the three runs off seven hits and striking out five.
Shortstop Courtney Bell, who took over for Peters, led the team offensively, going 2 for 4 with two RBIs. Third baseman Blair Roby went 1 for 3 with an RBI, and Lacey Parham was 1 for 4 with a double.
McKenna Welch added three hits and catcher Paige Kane had a hit.
Although the Wildcats’ state-playoff hopes are dashed, Kane hopes his team can finish out the season strong with games against Parkrose and Liberty — two teams that the Wildcats have beaten already this year.
“From a conference standpoint, we’re still not done,” Kane said. “We got a good chance to win at least two of the next three, which is to get us to six wins and last year, we had one. From that standpoint, I think we’ve improved greatly within the conference itself. My expectation was for us to finish fourth and we didn’t meet that expectation so those are the things you’ve got to walk away from and say, what are you going to do differently.”
On April 30, the Wildcats fell to Century, 9-4, at Century High School, and lost to league-leading Glencoe, 8-0, at home on April 28.
This week, Wilsonville finishes up the regular season, hosting Hillsboro on Monday before traveling to Liberty on Wednesday and to Parkrose on Friday. Game times are 5 p.m.
Kane said the future remains bright with experience and up-and-coming freshmen.
“I am pleased with this group,” Kane said. “It’s a great group of kids. We have a lot of upside coming up this year and next year with our sophomores getting older.”
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