Mother Nature’s Knockout Punch hasn’t Grounded Eagles’ Spirit

"No excuses", said Eagle softball coach Jon Cox, but when you compete against Mother Nature, "every 10 years or so she delivers a knockout punch."

This is one of those years and, among other things, inclement weather the past month-plus has caused the Eagles' schedule to change more often than the price of gas. Most recently, this coming weekend's first-of-the-season home games will instead be played on the road at Shasta this Saturday.

The Eagles had their first outdoor practice in 25 days on Tuesday at Yreka High School, and Cox said they've yet to have a full practice on their own field all season. "It's not an excuse," he said, "but we've struggled to find consistency on defense and without live hitting on the field. For sure we've been at a disadvantage."

Cox said team members are "still in high spirits" and ready for a spring break road trip to play a couple non-conference doubleheaders March 28 at Hartnell and March 30 at Merced. "We'll play softball, do some team bonding, and reward them for hanging in there. The girls love softball, love competing, and are looking forward to getting on without constant interruptions."

While their own field was buried in snow and the rest of the state was wet, the Eagles went 12 days without a game. Then they started their conference season on the road against the top two GVC teams so far. They lost the opener March 16 at Redwoods 9-1 in 5 innings, then rallied to score 3 runs in the top of the seventh before losing game two, 10-8.

The Eagles had just 4 hits in game one, 2 of them by Abigail Wolf. They had 12 hits in the second game, as Alexis Figueroa went 2 for 3 and scored twice, Olivia Dedmon singled and drove in two, Halliday Hubbard was 2 for 4, Shyla Mead scored twice, Breanne Cox tripled and drove in a run, and Maddalyn Fullenwider, Elyse Benson, and Abigail Wolf all singled and drove in one run each.

Two days later the Eagles lost 4-1 and 8-0 on Saturday at Butte.

Both Butte (16-5 overall) and Redwoods (12-6) were 4-0 at the top of the GVC standings, while Feather River (8-8) and Shasta (4-9) were both 2-2.

Despite their 3-12 overall record, the Eagles have two pitchers with top-five earned run averages in the GVC: Kaitlin Estes at 3.27 and Gracie Copeland at 3.59.

On offense, Nevaeh Atchley leads the Eagles with a .367 batting average and is second on the team with 11 hits, and Halliday Hubbard has a team-high 12 hits and .324 batting average. Maddalyn Fullenwider is batting .320 with a team-best .514 on base percentage and 9 runs scored. Abigail Wolf is batting .320 with a .393 on base percentage, and Alexis Figueroa has 10 hits with a team-high 9 runs batted in.

By Steve Gerace