Taft High scored the winning run in the bottom of the seventh inning Thursday to ride the starting pitching of junior Emma Coulter to a 2-1 nonleague softball victory over Santiam Christian.
“Our defense played well today behind Emma, who pitched great.” said coach Sandy Stuart, who said the Tigers made some changes to the defense and “worked through some different things.”
Coulter, with two doubles, and battery mate Hailee Danneker, who scored twice, had two hits each for the Tigers, while sophomore Claira Tolan also doubled for Taft.
“Our offense didn’t quite turn it on as we had hoped today,” Stuart said. “Sometimes going from faster pitching to slower is more difficult for hitters in this game and it got us today. We popped the ball up a lot and hit it right at defenders. Ultimately, the top of our lineup was able to push through and finish the game for us.”
Coulter struck out nine and walked none while scattering seven hits.
The Tigers, who moved from seventh to fifth in the Class 3A state rankings at 7-2 with the win, dropped 13th-rated Santiam Christian of the Mountain Valley Conference to 4-6.
Taft returns to the diamond at 4:30 p.m. Friday at home against Dayton, weather permitting
Taft 2, Santiam Christian 1 SANTIAM CHRISTIAN AB R H BI TAFT AB R H BI A Atkins 3 0 0 0 Hailee Danneker 4 2 2 0 C Wilfong 3 0 0 0 Addie Gates 3 0 0 0 K Gurr 3 1 2 0 Emma Coulter 4 0 2 1 S Carley 3 0 1 0 Chloe Peterson 3 0 1 0 K Fast 3 0 1 0 Claira Tolan 3 0 1 0 M Vetter 3 0 1 0 Makena Cole 3 0 1 0 L Devlin 2 0 0 0 Olivia Coulter 3 0 0 0 C Roberts 3 0 1 0 Lily Hatton 2 0 1 0 C Heer 3 0 1 0 Kayla Lininger 0 0 0 0 Kyla Knott 2 0 0 0 TOTALS 26 1 7 0 TOTALS 27 2 8 1 SANTIAM CHRISTIAN 000 100 0 -- 1 TAFT 100 000 1 -- 2 LOB--Santiam Chrisitan 5, Taft 10. E--S Carley, C Heer, Kyla Knott, Emma Coulter. 2B--K Gurr, Claira Tolan, Emma Coulter (2). SACB--L Devlin. SANTIAM CHRISTIAN IP H R ER BB SO HR C Wilfong 6.00 8 2 2 3 3 0 TAFT Emma Coulter 7.00 7 1 0 0 9 0 PB--K Gurr. SO--K Fast, S Carley, C Roberts, M Vetter, L Devlin (2), C Heer (2), C Wilfong, Addie Gates (2), Lily Hatton. BB--Kyla Knott, Addie GAtes, Kayla Lininger.
