Shorewood softball hangs on against Meadowdale

Published 8:15 pm Thursday, April 30, 2026

LYNNWOOD — Bases loaded, 3-0 count.

For Shorewood pitcher Ellie Van Horn, that would normally be a nightmare scenario. But this time, facing Meadowdale at Meadowdale Playfields on Thursday, she was the one at the plate.

Afforded the opportunity to wait for the right pitch to hit, Van Horn took the next two to settle at a full count. With Shorewood holding a 1-0 lead in the fourth with two outs, the senior desperately wanted to give herself some run support.

After fouling one back, Van Horn managed to roll a grounder up the middle hard enough that the infielders could not get the force out at second. All the runners advanced to keep the bases loaded, with junior Alyssa Carver scoring to make it 2-0.

“We knew (Meadowdale’s pitcher) was having a little struggle with balls and stuff, so we knew it was going to be a grind of an at-bat,” Van Horn said. “… Getting to 3-2, at that point, I changed my swing and anything close is going to be put in play. Just a little bit of a lucky placement, but it worked.”

A couple more Meadowdale pitching mistakes allowed two more runs to cross the plate, and the Stormrays (11-5, 8-1 league) held off a comeback effort to secure a 4-3 win against the Mavericks (6-10, 4-5 league).

Van Horn went 2-for-3 at the plate and pitched a complete game in the circle, allowing six hits and three walks while striking out nine. Zoey Perreault went 1-for-2 with two walks and two runs scored, and Lillian Perreault drove in two runs herself.

Shorewood has won eight of its past nine, and currently sits two games ahead of Edmonds-Woodway atop Wesco South 3A/2A with three league games left in the regular season. The Stormrays understand the target on their backs, but they have chosen to embrace it.

“We know coming into games that other people are going to be trying to break us down,” Lillian Perreault said. “So I think as a team, we’ve been really focusing on trying to keep it together and knowing that since they’re going to be going so hard, we have to go twice as hard just to keep up with them and keep dominating the way we are, and just knowing that our energy is what’s going to carry us through.”

Meadowdale certainly pushed back after falling behind 4-0. Senior Madison Mitchell hit an RBI double to score freshman Lillian McCormick in the fifth, and freshman Peyton Warnock and McCormick each hit solo home runs in the sixth and seventh, respectively, to cut it to 4-3.

After McCormick’s homer, which led off the bottom of the seventh, the Shorewood infield regrouped around the circle to go through the same routine they do at the beginning of innings as a way to reset, both mentally and physically. Van Horn retired each of the next three batters, striking out two and fielding a bunt in between to close out the win.

“We like saying little motivational phrases when we do a little high-five, and that one was, ‘start clean,’” Van Horn said. “We all just were on the same page, which is really helpful. Lily (Perreault) and I, we kind of just know each other really well, so we know how to pitch and catch to each other, and it really helps.”

Mitchell went 3-for-4 for the Mavericks, and Warnock and McCormick each went 1-for-2 with a walk on top of the home runs. Sophomore Payton Aldridge allowed just one hit in 3 1/3 innings of relief, striking out four.

Meadowdale also has three more league games left in the regular season, including a rematch at Shorewood on Monday. Sitting 10th in the District 1 3A RPI, the Mavericks are looking to stay above the cut line for the 12-team district tournament beginning on May 8.

“We were just keen on making adjustments in the box, and not letting a big inning affect us as we move forward,” Meadowdale coach Julia Reuble said about the comeback effort. “Just slowly trying chip away. We knew if we slowly kind of did that, we’d work our way back and trust ourselves, trust our pitchers. So I think they did a great job at making those adjustments.”

Mitchell led off the bottom of the first with a double, but Lillian Perreault caught her going to third after a whiffed bunt attempt on the first pitch of the next at-bat. A Mackenzie Kim single and Warnock walk ultimately led to runners on the corners with two outs, but Van Horn ended the frame with a strikeout to strand the runners.

The Stormrays took a 1-0 lead in the top of the third. Zoey Perreault walked, and Van Horn reached on a bunt single to put two runners on. Lillian Perreault fouled off three straight pitches, and the runners advanced to second and third on a wild pitch that brought it to a full count. Lillian Perreault finally put it in play down the third base line, scoring Zoey from third with an RBI groundout.

“Since I had two strikes, I knew she was probably going to try and throw me something a little funky,” Lillian said. “And if she wasn’t, I was just going to have to see it. Since I was catching, I knew what (the umpire’s) zone kind of looked like, so I knew what I was going to have to battle off, and honestly once I had two (strikes), it was more about putting it in play. I wasn’t trying to do much with the ball.”

Van Horn rolled through the bottom of the third with two strikeouts, then gave herself run support in the fourth after Carver led off with an infield single. Walks from Cailin O’Leary and Zoey Perreault loaded the bases, and after Van Horn’s RBI single pushed it to 2-0, Lillian Perreault got hit by a pitch to bring in another run. Zoey Perreault scored from third on a wild pitch during the next at-bat to make it 4-0.

“We could see that their pitcher was struggling a little bit, so I just told the girls to be disciplined (at the plate),” Shorewood coach Paul Jensen said. “We’ve been doing a good job of that all season long. Kind of being disciplined, getting our pitch, making pitchers work at different points of the game, because then the pressure was all on her at that point. She’s a good pitcher, but pressure makes a difference, and that’s one of the things that we pride ourselves on as an offense, is putting pressure on other teams.”

Van Horn went 1-2-3 in the bottom of the frame, but the Mavericks got on the board in the fifth when Mitchell blasted her RBI double to deep left field to cut it to 4-1. Mitchell advanced to third on the throw home, but Van Horn struck out the next batter to prevent any more damage.

Aldridge struck out three consecutive batters in the top of the seventh to maintain the 4-2 deficit prior to McCormick’s home run, but Shorewood held on in the end.

Cruising to victories with disciplined bats, stellar pitching and a camaraderie that holds everything together, the Stormrays plan to keep that going all the way to a league title, and potentially more.

“We didn’t get here because we got lucky,” Lillian Perreault said. “We got here because we know how to play and we know how to be a team, and so keeping that in mind going into the last few games, there’s a lot of seniors on the team. So just continuing to battle for each other and just try and win as much as we can.”