Western Washington University softball swept the Simon Fraser University Red Leafs in the final series of the regular season on April 25–26 at Viking Field.
Western ended the season on a 10-game win streak heading into the playoffs and clinched the number one seed in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference tournament.
Sophomore third baseman Maleah Andrews, who bats leadoff, has been dominant all season batting .500 — the second highest average in NCAA Division II — and has high hopes for the playoffs.
“It’s always nice to be up at the top,” Andrews said. “I mean, we just gotta keep going. We still gotta get through GNACs, and we want to go further, so start with one game at a time.”
Andrews dominated in this series, collecting five hits in 10 at-bats with one home run, seven runs, four RBI, four walks and only one strikeout.
“She's clutch, and she puts in a lot of work,” Head Coach Sheryl Gilmore said. “She is having an amazing season, but that can come with, sometimes, a lot of external expectations and pressure, and she's doing a really good job navigating that. It was cool to see her continue to have some success and just trust the process.”
The Vikings dominated on offense, but also had strong pitching to back them up. Leading the charge was sophomore Kaiana Kong, who dominated in all four games of the series, allowing only one run in the series as well as four perfect innings to start game four. Across the series, Kong had nine strikeouts in 11 innings pitched.
“For me, it's putting it all on the field for my seniors, and having that last home game with them is special to me,” Kong said. “Just playing for someone other than myself.”
The second day of the series was Senior Day, and families of all five seniors came onto the field for pregame festivities to celebrate the players. Among these seniors was pitcher Joie Baker, who collected her 300th collegiate strikeout for the Vikings in the first inning of Saturday’s game.
Senior right fielder McKenna Crum collected two clutch hits during Friday’s games and led the team in RBI in game one.
“I like to attack early,” Crum said. “I was trying to jump on her first good pitch that she threw me. Then that second at bat I was looking for an inside pitch the whole time, and they hadn't thrown me one all day, and I finally got an inside pitch and turned on it. So I was super excited to get the pitch I was looking for.”
In game three, the Vikings allowed a late-game comeback by Simon Fraser to tie the game 2-2 in the top of the sixth inning. Kaiana Kong stifled the Red Leafs in the top of the seventh with an inning-ending strikeout to head into the bottom of the seventh.
Laila Carpenter started the seventh inning with a leadoff single and Crum had a sacrifice bunt to advance Carpenter to second, after which Carpenter advanced to third, catching the SFU defense sleeping. Freshman Nyree Johnson stepped up to the plate and walked the game off with a clutch single up the middle to end it.
“It felt amazing,” Johnson said. “Felt like I did something great for the team.”
Overall the Vikings won game one 5-0, game two 8-0, game three 3-2 and game four 8-1, completing a sweep of SFU to end the season on a high note.
“You just take it one game at a time,” Gilmore said. “I think when we start looking too far forward, then we get outside ourselves, and so just to come out tomorrow and think about winning the first inning, the first pitch, and then win each pitch after that. We're excited to go into GNACs, but now we got a battle in front of us, and people are gonna be coming for us, so we're excited about it.”
Chayton Engelson (he/him) is a sports and recreation reporter for the Front. He is in his first year at Western and is majoring in news/editorial journalism. When he isn’t covering stories, he is usually doing community theater, playing an instrument, or playing basketball with his friends. You can reach him at chaytonengelson.thefront@gmail.com.
