Barnhart’s blast beats Stayton 3-1

Stayton again jumped out front, this time to a 1-0 lead in the top of the second inning. Beth McDermot singled, advanced on a walk and a sacrifice, and scored on Kaylee Duschateau’s RBI single. However, the Eagles left two runners in scoring position.

Eighth ranked Cascade answered in the bottom of the third inning, as Courtney Jackson was hit by a Sears pitch, and went on to score on Ashley Grucza’s RBI single.

(Updated with photos.)

Stayton’s Gabriel Esparza makes a catch against Cascade at the fence.

Cascade took the upper hand in the bottom of the fourth inning, as sophomore Jessica Slate led off with a double. Rachael Barnhart followed with a two RBI home run blast over the fence in right center field.

Cascade’s Rachael Barnhart homered to put the Cougars ahead 3-1.

Stayton wasn’t finished, as Sears opened the seventh inning with a single. Kaylee Duchateau singled to advance the pinch runner to third. Cascade threw to third, but too late. However, Slate threw back to second, cutting down Duchateau. Instead of having the tieing run in scoring position with one out, there were now two outs. Cascade Coach Tim Ganfield simply described the play as “Huge! We needed our defense to step up. They kept their head on; they are always looking for the next play.”

Cascade’s Ashley Edwards tags out Stayton’s Kaylea Duchateau.

The Cougars’ ace Elayna Van Hess then got her eighth strike out of the game to get the win, getting Gabriel Esparza looking at a pitch on the corner.

Stayton’s Gabriel Esparza (4) strikes out looking.

Stayton Coach Steve Miller’s prediction about the importance came true, as Cascade won in large part to the strikeout margin. Van Hess got two of her eight in the seventh inning, and four over the last three innings. Meanwhile, Kelsey Sears had only two strikeouts for Stayton.

Cascade’s Elayna Van Hess had eight strikeouts against Stayton.

Cascade had lost to 5A playoff bound West Albany 6-3 on Monday, and Ganfield had noted “Elayna was not as sharp as usual yesterday, but she has always done a good job of stepping up when we need it. She and Rachael both played great games for us today, but really, as seniors, they did what I expected them to do. They have both been thru situations like this what seems like a million times.”

Cascade (19-8) will host Sweet Home (11-11), the third seed from the Valco Conference, Friday in the first round of the OSAA state playoffs at 4:30. The game is a rematch of the season opener for both teams, in which the Huskies prevailed 5-2, in a rain shortened six inning game.

Ganfield observed “We are two completely different teams since then. Hopefully, we will continue to play like we did today. The West Albany game was helpful, because I felt we started swinging the bat better.”

Stayton finished the season 12-12.

Stayton 010 000 0 - 1 4 0

Cascade 001 200 x - 3 4 0

Kelsey Sears (L) & Lou Nunez; Elayna Van Hess (W) & Rachael Barnhart. HR – Barnhart ( C). 2B – Jessica Slate ( C).

CC

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it