WOODLAND — Ridgefield may have sent the exact same players out onto the field, but Woodland saw a hungrier bunch than it did six days prior.
The kind of hungry that being shut out by your much-awaited league opponent brings.
“Last week lit a fire under us,” Ridgefield shortstop Sarah Jenkins said.
The Spudders channeled an extra-inning offensive burst, and a stellar outing from ace Kaia Oliver to beat Woodland 4-3 in ten innings on Wednesday, pulling back even with the Beavers in the 2A Greater St. Helens League title race.
They handed Woodland its first loss of the season.
The outcome did not rattle postseason contention, as the 2A GSHL gets five bids to districts, but it ensured a tight race for first place entering the final week of league play.
And it set the standard for Ridgefield going forward. The Spudders (12-2, 7-1 2A GSHL) felt like their communication was as good as it has been all year, and that its energy in the dugout carried onto the field.
“We played our best softball of the season today,” Jenkins said. “From now on we’re going to try to repeat today’s performance.”
Last week, Woodland pitcher Olivia Grey capped an emphatic strikeout-laden shutout performance and narrowly edged Oliver in the pitching battle.
On Wednesday, Oliver clapped back.
The Syracuse commit tossed 17 strikeouts opposite four hits and one earned run in 10 innings. On two occasions, she finished an inning with a strikeout with two runners on base.
With the game on the line, Oliver made quick work of the final inning.
She struck out the first two batters, then calmly gathered a soft, bouncing grounder and dished it to first baseman Karli Oliver, her sister, to seal the win and ignite the Spudders’ jumping celebration.
After a 1-1 finish to regulation, extra innings seemed like a complete departure from the majority of the game — which was defined by a battle between the dominant pitchers.
In the ninth, Jenkins blasted a double into center field, stole third a play later, then scored after an error in the tenth inning to give the Spudders the 4-3 edge.
Early fireworks aside, both teams carried seven scoreless innings into the ninth before the bats wore down two of the area’s top pitchers.
To Woodland third baseman Kelly Sweyer, it felt exactly like the last outing — low-scoring, with hits few and far in between.
What made Wednesday different was Ridgefield’s ability to hit off of Grey, who finished with 11 strikeouts and gave up 11 hits and three earned runs.
“We actually got under (Grey’s) skin, which was honestly kind of the key point,” senior third baseman Calli Martin said. “To get under Olivia’s skin with the pounding on the fence, the energy the whole time, it was just phenomenal to keep the whole time.”
But when Ridgefield got going, Woodland didn’t fade.
After the Spudders took a 3-1 lead in the ninth, and grabbed hold of the momentum, the Beavers responded promptly.
Chloe Eddy got to second base after her ground ball was fumbled in the first at-bat of the frame. Sweyer then tripled to right field, which sent Eddy home.
Two outs later, Sweyer, still on third, saw a passed ball — “I love going on passed balls,” she said — and darted home to tie the game at 3-3.
“We kind of feed off each others’ energy,” Sweyer said. “A team scores two runs and you want to score three. I think we really wanted to win, so when they got two runs ahead, we knew we had to do something to get it back, so we just brought up the energy.”
The Beavers were disappointed after the loss, but are taking it as a wakeup call. Head coach Tom Christensen was critical of his team’s preparedness, and allocated some of the blame to himself. But he has confidence in the Beavers (14-1, 8-1) to rebound.
“Hopefully it keeps us hungry,” Christensen said. “It’s what we maybe needed to light a fire under us.”
RIDGEFIELD 4, WOODLAND 3 (10 INNINGS)
Ridgefield 100 000 0021—4 11 3
Woodland 100 000 0020—3 4 1
Ridgefield
Pitching — Kaia Oliver 10.0 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 17 K, 1 BB, 1 HR; Highlights — Sarah Jenkins 2-4, 2 R, 2B; Emma Jenkins 1-5, 1 RBI; Calli Martin 1-5, 1 R, 2B; Mia Tomillo RBI; Hailee Gruber 1-2, 1 RBI, Karli Oliver 2-3.
Woodland
Pitching — Olivia Grey 10.0 IP, 11 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 11 K, 2 BB; Highlights — Lila Russell 1-5, 1 R, 1 RBI; Kelly Sweyer 1-3, 1 R, 1 RBI, 3B.
