The Philomath High School softball team continues to look for its first victory this season following a 21-2 loss Thursday against Stayton but fourth-year coach Travis King feels there are indications that better outcomes could be just around the corner.
Over this week, the team nearly knocked off North Marion on the road in a 21-20 loss and the players had their moments in losses to Cascade and Stayton — the only two unbeatens remaining in Oregon West Conference play.
A moment this week that King mentioned involved Cascade coach Marty Jeppsen, who talked to Philomath’s girls following a 15-0 Cougars win on Wednesday.
“With the way we played yesterday, Marty said he anticipates that we’re going to come out of this and be a viable third-place team potentially,” King said. “Yesterday was a good outing actually. We pitched well, we only walked three batters in the game. I mean, we still lost but we also only struck out once. We hit the ball, we just couldn’t generate any runs. … And we didn’t have the typical errors that we’ve been seeing.”
Some of those problems in the field did factor into the 21-2 result in Thursday’s game.
“In tonight’s game, errors came back to haunt us and we’re trying to work out of them,” King said. “The youth side of it is we struggled with getting ourselves out of the error and moving on with the next play.”
King said he likes what he’s been seeing at the plate.
“They’re being more aggressive and they’re putting the ball in play,” he said. “We’ve had numerous balls that were hit hard.”
Philomath (0-12) could finish anywhere from third to sixth in the conference with Sweet Home (3-10), North Marion (2-9) and Newport (1-11) all competing at a similar level.
The Warriors will try to break into the win column on Monday with a trip to Newport. Then they play at home for matchups against Sweet Home on Wednesday and North Marion on Thursday.
Statistics from Philomath’s game against Stayton were not available.
