This story first appeared in the February 2020 edition of the Hilltop.
By: Connor Morton
The softball team commenced conference games this weekend, beating Oregon Tech in three of four games. After losing 1-9 in the first game on Friday, the Warriors won 12-8 in the second game of their doubleheader. The next day they continued strong by winning 10-8, then shutting out Oregon Tech in the final game with a win of 1-0.
“It feels pretty amazing,” Rachel Martin, the team’s head coach, said in a post-game interview. “The girls are overcomers. They showed true grit, they bounced back, and they rose to what we gave them as challenges.”
The Warriors clinched valuable wins for the conference championship by beating Oregon Tech, ranked 8th in the NAIA for softball. Corban is ranked 24th and had to make a switch to beat OIT’s best pitcher, Sarah Abramson, who held the team to three hits and one run in the first game on Friday.
“We went into it with the mentality of looking for our pitches instead of what she would throw us,” Martin said, describing the shift the team made to win both games on Saturday. “With that mentality switch we were able to prove it in the first game.”
The Warriors’ hitting improved throughout the games, with Ivey Uppinghouse starting the doubleheader steamroll of OIT on Saturday with a homer.
“It felt pretty good to just get back on the field after having a redshirt year,” Uppinghouse said. “Being able to help the team and get those runs against a tough opponent meant a lot!”
The Warrior batters hit four homers in Saturday’s first game on the way to a win.
In the second game, the pitchers from both teams controlled the game, with only one run when Corban’s Sam Woodley scored on a fielding error by an OIT player. Kaylee Brown pitched the shutout game, allowing only three hits by the opposing team.
“We went from giving up sixteen hits the first game and in this last game only three,” Martin explained. “That’s the type of momentum that we’re going to continue to move forward throughout the season.”
“I think we came out and showed what we can do when we play with heart,” Uppinghouse said. “We have things to work on of course but we showed a lot of great stuff that we can build on for the rest of the season.”