SNOHOMISH — The Snohomish softball team quickly turned a battle of defending state champions into a one-sided affair.
Rylie Wales homered twice and was one of seven Panthers to register multiple hits Tuesday, as defending Class 4A state champion Snohomish rode a 19-hit barrage to a 16-1 five-inning win over visiting Meadowdale in a Wesco 3A showdown.
“Amazing,” Panthers coach Lou Kennedy said of his team’s performance. “They just came out 100 percent. They came out sharp, they were focused from the start and that’s what they’re capable of when they play that way.
“It kind of reminded me of playing in the state (title) game last year. It was like, ‘Wow, these guys are really good.’ They impressed me today.”
Snohomish (13-1 overall, 12-0 Wesco 3A) managed only three hits the previous day in a 2-1 win over Mountlake Terrace, but it was a much different story Tuesday.
The Panthers tagged Meadowdale standout senior pitcher Lauren Dent from the outset, hammering out a six-run first inning while sending 12 batters to the plate in the opening frame. Snohomish added another run in the second, five more in the third and four in the fourth to finish with at least 15 runs for the eighth time this season.
The defending 3A state-champion Mavericks (10-4, 9-3) had allowed only nine runs combined in their previous 11 games. But they were no match Tuesday for the Panthers, who peppered the ball all over the field and cruised to their 13th consecutive victory since a season-opening loss to Jackson.
“It’s kind of a cause and effect from (Monday),” Kennedy said. “(Monday), we didn’t hit. We hit a lot of fly-ball outs and the girls kind of took that to heart. They worked a little harder on their pregame, and it showed. They came up with the attitude today.”
Wales, a senior, highlighted the offensive fireworks by finishing 3-for-3 with two homers, five RBIs and four runs scored.
The left-handed cleanup hitter crushed a two-run homer to dead center in the third inning and blasted an opposite-field homer in the fourth. She now has five home runs this season.
“Rylie’s got a great stroke,” Kennedy said. “She can go left field, center field, right field. She picks her pitch, and when she’s on it, it can go out of any park.”
Emma Lande, Ruby Butler and University of Washington commit Sami Reynolds also had three-hit performances for Snohomish, while Bailey Greenlee and Ame Bridgman each went 2-for-4 with three RBIs apiece. The Panthers finished with six extra-base hits.
Greenlee, a junior pitcher, complemented her team’s heavy hitting with a stellar performance in the circle. She struck out eight of the first nine batters she faced and finished with 10 punchouts in five innings pitched.
“When she’s in a groove and gets focused on hitting exactly her spots, she’s really, really hard to hit,” Kennedy said. “Just even putting the ball in play is a good step.”
After Bridgman connected for a two-run single in the bottom of the first, Carmen Morrison ripped an RBI double into the gap to give Snohomish an early 4-0 lead. Two batters later, Lande looped a two-run double into left field to make it 6-0.
Greenlee pushed the lead to 10-0 with a three-run triple in the third, and Wales homered in back-to-back innings to punctuate a statement performance by a Panthers team that graduated just one starter from last season’s state-championship squad.
“It just takes one hit and we get on a roll,” Wales said. “And that’s when we do our best — when we string those hits together and just rack them up.”
For Meadowdale, the loss snapped a seven-game winning streak and dropped the Mavericks one-half game behind first-place Mountlake Terrace in the Wesco 3A South.
“They’re the state-caliber team that lost one player,” Mavericks coach Dennis Hopkins said of Snohomish. “(We) lost six. There’s a difference, and it showed. We’re young. … Some games you’re going to win, some you’re going to lose. You can’t win them all.”
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