The Lady Bruin softball team met up with the Cascade Christian Lady Challengers Friday afternoon to finish the three game series after meeting earlier in the week and the Challengers walking away with a no-hitter at home.
Head coach Tony Baron and the Lady Bruins took to the diamond with senior Gracie Harms #27 in the circle to start the game, and game 2 started the way game 1 ended, in a pitching dual until late in the game.
Harms retired the Challengers in the top of the first striking out one, the second on a fielders choice and the third on a pop-up to center field, and the Lady Bruins got to their first at bats 0-0.
The Challengers sent the same freshman pitcher that no-hit them on Tuesday in Medford to the rubber, and Lady Bruins established that they would be putting the ball in play in this game getting 6 batters to the plate, but came away with no points.
Harms sat the next 3 Challenger batters down in order in top of the second as both teams put runners on the base paths with no results until the Challengers scored in the 3rd off of a passed ball at the plate.
The Lady Bruins bats woke up the third time through the order when junior Jordan Pryor #16 singled in the bottom of the 5th, advancing to second on a sacrifice bunt before Madison Taylor #22 doubled on line to left field scoring Pryor.
The Lady Bruins went on to put 5 runs on board in the 5th, while the Lady Challengers had more runs scored on them than in all of their games combined, as well as their first loss of the season.
In the late game of the double header, junior Madison Taylor #22 was throwing to start the game for coach Baron, and even though the Lady Bruins jumped out early scoring in the first and second innings by putting runners on base and pressuring the Lady Challenger defense, they just could not sustain consistent offense later in the game.
In the top of the fourth the Lady Challengers put together five hits off of Taylor, getting 6 across the plate and putting a deficit on the Lady Bruins that they would not recover from, dropping the late game in the double header, and going 1-2 in the series.
The Lady Bruins had 8 hits in both games Friday and played error free softball in the first game of the day. But the 4 errors in the late game proved to be the difference, after getting only 2 runs off of 8 hits in the late game.
The now 4-2 Lady Bruins will move on to meet the 3-0 South Umpqua Lady Lancers at home Tuesday at 4:00pm.
