EVERETT — The Snohomish softball team was incredibly excited to face an undefeated Cascade team on Monday.
Then the Panthers made sure they were the last team this season to do so.
Cascade had won 10 straight before Snohomish’s Alyssa Simons pitched a one-hit shutout — striking out 10 — as the Panthers defeated Cascade 6-0 in a Wesco 4A game at Cascade High School.
“You have to be excited about a game like this,” said Snohomish head coach Lou Kennedy. “The top two teams going at it right now. I mean Lake Stevens is (a half game) ahead of us. But we were jacked for this game. They warmed up and they were ready to go.”
Panthers catcher Morgan Greenlee was 2-for-3 with a run scored and Trysten Melhart went 2-for-4 with an RBI, double and two runs scored. Six different Snohomish players drove in runs while eight players in the lineup got at least one hit. Snohomish had 10 hits in the game.
Snohomish (4-1 league, 9-1 overall) jumped to a 3-0 lead in the top of the second. Bailey Seek and Lan Nguyen hit RBI singles and Melhart drove in a run with a sacrifice fly.
“It is kind of infectious. Hitting’s always infectious,” Kennedy said. “The nice thing was we got contributions from the top of the lineup clear down to the bottom of the lineup. We got some key RBI from kids. When you do that you’re hard to beat.”
Kennedy singled out Kelsi Goodwin, who went 1-for-3 with a walk and a run scored. The senior is returning from her second knee injury, both ACL tears. Before the start of the season, Kennedy wasn’t sure she was going to be able to play.
“Kelsi Goodwin hit the ball good today and ran the bases really well,” Kennedy said. “She’s coming off two ACL tears. That’s huge that she’s hitting. She starts driving in runs for us, that will be helpful.”
The six runs were plenty for Simons. The freshman pitcher improved to 3-1 this season and she did it against a tough Cascade team with a star pitcher of its own in Makinlee Sellevold.
“She has tremendous movement in her pitches,” Kennedy said of Simons. “If you stand behind home and you’re watching when she throws the ball it looks good and then it ends up in on your hands, or on the outside corner or chin-high.”
Kennedy said that all of Simons’ pitches are good, but one in particular can be especially difficult for opposing hitters.
“When she’s ahead in the count she’s really hard to beat, mostly because she has great command. When she can throw the changeup for a strike, forget about it,” Kennedy said. “You’re all anxious to hit something in the 60s and then here comes a 40 mile per hour-pitch. Jamie Moyer would be proud of that one.”
Simons and the rest of the Panthers didn’t appear nervous before the game, according to Kennedy. He said that if anything, he was the anxious one on the Snohomish bench.
“Probably me more than them. The girls were very relaxed today,” Kennedy said. “I think that was a big key for us.”
The loss ended Cascade’s bid for an undefeated season. Bruins’ head coach Kelly Ross said the loss was “bittersweet,” but provides Cascade (5-1, 10-1) with a chance to see how it responds after the loss.
“You can look at it two ways,” Ross said. “You can see how they bounce back which I know that they will. So it’s nice to get it out of the way and just move forward and make some adjustments. But you never like to lose.”
Ross said that she didn’t think the Bruins were mentally ready for the showdown with the Wesco 4A North’s Panthers.
“They just needed to mentally prepare better than they did. We knew it was going to be a good game going in,” Ross said. “(The Panthers) are solid defensively and very solid on offense. Unfortunately, today was not our best offensive performance.”
Sage Anderson had the only hit for the Bruins and also drew a walk, one of three Cascade players to do so. Ross said that the stagnant Cascade offense on Monday was a combination of not being mentally prepared and facing a good pitcher.
“(Simons) is a strong solid pitcher for them and she was having a good day on the mound,” Ross said. “But I think that we took ourselves out of the game mentally. We definitely did not have our offense on like we have in the past. I think we helped her a little bit, but she’s a good pitcher. She earned it.”
At Cascade H.S.
Snohomish 030 020 1—6 10 0
Cascade 000 000 0—0 1 0
Alyssa Simons and Morgan Greenlee. Makinlee Sellevold and Alex Deaver. WP—Simons (3-1). LP—Sellevold. 2B—Trysten Melhart (S). Records—Snohomish 4-1 league, 9-1 overall. Cascade 5-1, 10-1.
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