HOOD RIVER – Facing a turning point to the season, The Dalles senior Maddy Bradford put the team on her back and willed them to a doubleheader sweep Saturday by scores of 2-0 and 9-5 in a Columbia River Conference softball matchup played on the road against Hood River Valley.
In 17 innings pitched, Bradford struck out 16, allowed 13 hits and three earned runs, and also chipped in three hits, including a home run and two RBIs.
From the opening pitch, head coach Steve Garrett knew Bradford was dialed in.
“Maddy can always do it. She has shown it before and today she showed us that she can be our horse,” Garrett said. “She can shut any team down and she was in complete control today. Maddy was hitting her spots and jamming them to where they were hitting balls off the fist and not putting too much power on any of their hits. When she is pitching like that, we are a tough team to beat.”
In the opening game, Bradford went 3 for 3 with a home run, Kailin Hoylman added two hits and a run scored and Ruthie Ford added a triple and an RBI to lead TD to a 2-0 win.
Hoylman scored the first run in the third inning on Ford’s RBI triple and then in the fourth, Bradford hammered a 0-1 pitch 240-feet away to left field for an insurance marker.
Bradford faced her biggest threat in the bottom of the seventh inning, as Hood River had the first two batters reach on an error and a single by Kaylin Winans.
Bradford then struck out Janesa Castaneda swinging and retired Makena Zeller on a flyball to right to make it two outs.
With Emily Curtis at the plate, both HRV runners advanced a base on a passed ball, so Curtis had the tying runs in scoring position.
On a 0-2 pitch, Bradford fired a fastball past Curtis for the strikeout swinging to end the game.
Bradford scattered three hits, struck out eight and did not walk a batter in her complete-game effort.
Made Vallejo, Winans and Emilie Ellifritz had the only hits for the Eagles
In the second game, TD fell behind 2-1 through one inning, but rallied for five runs in the fourth inning and tacked on three more in the fifth on a two-run single by Ford and an RBI single to right by Grace Helyer to swell the lead to 9-2.
Hood River battled back for three runs in the bottom of the fifth inning to make it a 9-5 score, but Bradford was able to hold the Eagles at bay in the final two innings, stranding three runners on base, as she escaped a two-on, no-out jam with a strikeout, a flyout and a groundout to finish the game.
Bradford struck out eight batters in her seven innings and she walked three. The senior gave up 10 hits and three of the five runs were earned.
Hannah McNerney went 2 for 4 with a run scored, Winans added two hits, two walks and a run scored, and Castaneda and Zeller posted a hit and a walk apiece to lead HRV (9-12 overall, 2-6 league).
For the Riverhawks, Ford went 3 for 4 with two RBIs and a run, Helyer notched two hits, a walk and an RBI, and Lori Cimmiyotti had three hits and scored two runs for the team’s 12 hits in the nightcap.
Sierra Watson and Hoylman had a hit and a run scored each, Kathryn Bradford went 1 for 4 with a run and an RBI, and Alyssa Donnell added a walk and a run scored.
“They just came ready,” Garrett said. “We want to have a balanced lineup and that’s what we had today. All the way through the lineup, we had girls step up with great at-bats. Lolo (Cimmiyotti) was hot, Hoylman had a clutch base hit in big situation, Kathryn got an RBI single and Maddy came up with a couple of big boomers. We had the timely hits. In the past couple of games, we had left a ton of runners on base, so it was nice to see them come around and get those runners across.”
Those two wins vaulted the Riverhawks from a last-place deadlock with Hood River Valley to a second-place tie with Hermiston (13-9, 4-4) with four league games to go.
When the season was on the line, Cimmiyotti said everyone was dialed in ready to contribute in any way possible.
“These were two really big games,” she said. “We knew if we wanted to get higher in the standings that we needed to win. Other girls were doing whatever they could to help this team, whether it is running, hitting, stealing bases, getting the big hits at big moments. I thought we were really focused in these two games and we just did it. Everything came through for us.”
TD hosts Hood River at 4:30 p.m. tonight, and then hosts Hermiston in a single game at 4:30 p.m. on Friday.
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