Friday, May 10, the softball team had already secured a spot in the playoffs but was looking for a sweep of a double header against Grays Harbor Community College to clinch first place.

Since April 27^, the team had raised the bar and had their sights on making the playoffs but had a lot of work to do.  That is exactly what they did as they swept aside Highline, South Puget Sound, Centralia, and Green River to win 13 straight games and change the tide of their season.

Game one on Friday, Lunden Young led the way as she started off the game shutting down Grays Harbor batters for the first six innings as the Raiders offense put seven runs across the plate, compliments of a five run second inning.  Ashley Bezdicek went two for two in the game with a homerun and two RBI and Young helped herself out with a homerun as well as she went two for three with two RBI.  Both home runs came in the second inning and left the Raiders with some breathing room.  They took game one by the score of seven to one.

Joseph Henrickson
Staff Writer

In game two, Pierce got on the board in the first with a homerun off the bat of Jorden Steele, but Grays Harbor answered back in the top of the third with three runs and added a little pressure to Raiders starting pitcher, Kierston Perry.

In the bottom of the fourth, Grays Harbor pitcher, Jill Johnson started off walking the first two batters she faced and after recording a strike out, she faced Sam Kimble.  Kimble hit a double scoring Perry and Hailey Haukeli and the game was tied at three.  The Raiders didn’t stop there.  They took the lead when the following hitter, Tessa Sams singled and scored Kimble from second base.    After a walk from Bezdicek, Steele hit a double scoring two runs and Brittanie Halquist followed with a run scoring double as well.  She would come around to score on a single by Haukeli and the Raiders had a monster lead at eight to three.

The score remained there until the top of the seventh inning when things got a little shaky.  With one out, Perry gave up two consecutive doubles making the score eight to four and then watched a shot go over the fence from Shannon Glenn as the lead was cut to eight to six.  With the bases empty, Perry recovered and got the last two outs of the inning to get the win and give Pierce College the West Region title in the NWAACC.

A couple weeks ago it seemed like a daunting task to climb all the way to first place but the Raiders fought hard and are heading to the playoffs with some serious momentum as they have won 15 straight games.  It has been a busy last few weeks as the girls have played double headers almost every day but now that they sit in first place at the end of the regular season it is all worth it.