SNOHOMISH — With a deficit growing and the pressure building for the Lake Stevens softball team in Tuesday’s Wesco 4A game against Snohomish, it was a freshman pitcher that came to the rescue.
The Vikings trailed 3-0 when Sara Johnson entered the game in relief of starter Megan Barry, but the Panthers’ lead wouldn’t last much longer. Johnson pitched four scoreless innings and gave up just one hit as the Vikings rallied to defeat the Panthers 4-3.
“In that time I’m just trying to picture it as a new game,” Johnson said of her mindset when she entered the game. “I’m stepping in and I’m just trying to get my team back on track. I’m picturing it as a new game for myself and for my team to start new.”
Lake Stevens did just that.
Johnson retired the Panthers in order in the bottom of the fourth inning, which seemed to ignite the offense. Makala Akers led off the top of the fifth inning with a double to right field. It was the Vikings’ first hit of the game, but it was the first of many.
“It took us a while to make the adjustment and we’d been talking about it for two innings. It took one kid to do it and to prove it,” Lake Stevens head coach Sarah Hirsch said of Akers’ hit. “Once they did and bought in, we were golden from there.”
Two batters after Akers’ hit, Amie Browder added an RBI-single to right field and Cassidy Fifield had the inning’s biggest hit — a two-run double that landed just inside the left-field line.
“It was contagious,” Hirsch said. “Once one started, it was like a waterfall for us.”
The Vikings tied the game with three runs in the top of the fifth inning, and with Johnson dominating from the pitcher’s circle it was clear momentum had shifted.
Johnson pitched three perfect innings before finally giving up a hit in the bottom of the seventh inning. The hit didn’t bother the young pitcher, who retired the next two batters to end the game.
“She was just hammering her spot,” Snohomish head coach Lou Kennedy said of Johnson. “That’s just perfect. You love a pitcher that can do that. If he (the umpire) keeps calling that a strike, you just keep throwing it. The bad thing for us was we only had a few innings to make a quick adjustment.”
The Vikings scored the go-ahead run in the top of the sixth inning on an RBI-triple by Barry that scored Payton Beaver.
Snohomish’s Ruby Butler, the second batter to the plate in the bottom of the seventh inning, got the only hit of the game off Johnson. She moved into scoring position on a sacrifice bunt, before Johnson closed the door on the Panthers’ chances.
The Panthers’ batters seemed to have trouble adjusting to Johnson, who is a left-hander — a rarity in high school.
“I know a lot of the girls on Snohomish, so it’s like they know me, but they don’t know what (pitch) is coming,” Johnson said.
For as good as Johnson was in the final four innings, Snohomish starting pitcher Alyssa Simons was just as good in the first four, giving up no hits and walking just one.
All four runs and seven hits for Lake Stevens came in the final three innings off of Simons.
“She missed her spots a little bit, but I think more than anything they did a good job of making adjustments,” Kennedy said. “She was working a lot of curveballs away and they made some really good adjustments to take that away.”
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