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Now in her 14th season coaching Mountlake Terrace Hawks fastpitch softball, Shannon Rasmussen has a good grasp of what to expect from league rivals. In preparation for Friday’s game against the 2A/3A Wesco League South Conference leaders, the Shorewood Stormrays, Rasmussen made some lineup changes she had hoped would help her Hawks handle the pressure often applied by the aggressive Stormrays.
Despite the prep work and game adjustments, Rasmussen’s best-laid plans didn’t yield the results she had hoped for. The Hawks stumbled defensively just enough to hand Shorewood a 4-1 victory in a key league matchup played at Meridian Park Field in Shoreline.
“Today, our defense let us down,” Rasmussen said. “We had some errors in the defense and that hurt us a lot.”
Three of the four Stormrays runs on Friday were unearned.
Shorewood picked up two unearned runs in the third inning after the Hawks were unable to field a fly ball off the bat of Ellie Van Horn. Van Horn then scored when teammate Lillian Perreault laced a triple down the right field line; Perreault was brought home with an RBI groundout by Rose Gallagher.
Then in the fourth inning, the Stormrays scored two more runs without hitting the ball out of the infield. Alyssa Carver started the inning with an infield single, was moved to second by a sacrifice bunt, took third base on a wild pitch and then scored on a safety squeeze bunt by Lilah Pickett.
Later in the fourth, Zoey Perreault crossed the plate for Shorewood when Terrace first baseman Charlotte Snook lost her balance and couldn’t collect a hard hit ball before the batter, Lillian Perreault, reached first and her sister scored from third base.
Rasmussen gave Shorewood credit for the way they pressured her Hawk defense into making mistakes, then taking advantage of their opportunities to score. “They’re really aggressive on the bases,” Rasmussen said of the Stormrays. “We just weren’t able to hold them as tight on the bases as we wanted.”
Terrace senior Amaya Johnson started on the mound and gave up just one earned run on six hits, struck out four Stormrays and walked just two in the game. “She pitched great,” Rasmussen said. “I feel that Amaya did everything she needed to do for us to keep them in check.”
The Hawks pounded out seven hits in the game, the biggest blow being an RBI triple to deep center field by Snook in the sixth inning. But Terrace couldn’t muster much of any offensive momentum as Shorewood’s Van Horn pitched a complete game, struck out eight and walked none.
“She kept us off balance,” Rasmussen said of Van Horn. “She got some key strikeouts and some key ground balls when she needed them to get out of innings.”
With the victory, Shorewood remained undefeated in Wesco League South Conference play (6-0 in league play, 9-4 overall). The Hawks, had the team been able to defeat the Stormrays on Friday, would have left Meridian Park Field just one-half game behind the conference leader; instead, Terrace dropped to 4-3 in conference play, 5-6 overall.
The loss on Friday was the Hawks’ third straight defeat after home losses to Archbishop Murphy on Monday and Stanwood on Tuesday. “We’ve had a rough week,” Rasmussen said.
Mountlake Terrace freshman Eva Martins waits for a pitch during the Hawks-Stormrays game.
Despite Friday’s loss to Shorewood, Rasmussen’s postgame message to her team was that there’s still plenty of games ahead and time to get on a track to reach goals they have set for this year.
“I keep letting them know that it sucks that we lost but we also need to look forward,” Rasmussen said. “We’ve got to make it into districts (the 3A District 1 Tournament in early May) first and hopefully get a decent spot when we get (there). And then those are the games that are really going to matter.”
Terrace will be on the road for three away games next week starting with a matchup against the Lynnwood Royals on Monday.
Prep Fastpitch Softball: Mountlake Terrace at Shorewood, April 17
Mountlake Terrace 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 – 1 7 3
Shorewood 0 0 2 2 0 0 x – 4 6 0
Winning pitcher: Ellie Van Horn (Shorewood); 7 IP, 1 earned run, 7 hits, 8 SO, 0 BB
Losing pitcher: Amaya Johnson (Mountlake Terrace); 7 IP, 1 earned run, 6 hits, 4 SO, 2 BB
Records: Mountlake Terrace 4-3 in 2A/3A Wesco League South Conference, 5-6 overall; Shorewood 6-0 in 2A/3A Wesco League South Conference, 9-4 overall
Mountlake Terrace next game: versus Lynnwood; Monday, April 20; 4 p.m. at Lynnwood High School
Shorewood next game: versus Shorecrest; Monday, April 27; 6:30 p.m. at Meridian Park Field in Shoreline
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