Whitney throttles Oak Ridge, 8-1 to advance to championship game

Whitney's softball team has had a great offensive season and they showed the bats off Tuesday in the Division 1 semifinal against Oak Ridge. The Wildcats scored eight runs and had 14 hits against Loyola Marymount-bound pitcher Kennedi Freeland and everyone in the Whitney lineup had at least one hit in a convincing 8-1 win. The Wildcats (23-8) now advance to Saturday's Division 1 championship game against Rodriguez (17-9), the seventh seed. The Wildcats will try to win its second consecutive section title and third in the last four years. Whitney scored three runs in the bottom of the second to take the early lead, as the bottom of the lineup came through in the clutch. With the bases load, No. 8 hitter Paige Tamblyn lofted a sacrifice fly to score one run. The next run came on a double-steal nicely executed from Lulu Im and Brooklyn Steele. The final run of the inning scored on a single by No. 9 hitter Larissa Rogowski. Whitney made it 4-0 in the fourth when leadoff hitter Rebecca Rau doubled in a run. Oak Ridge scored its lone run in the top of the fifth, but could have had more and Whitney was lucky to get out of the inning with only one run scoring. With two outs, Hayden Chua reached on a Whitney error and Emery Glaser followed with a single. Brooklyn Paratore, who's headed to the University of Washington, then singled in Chua to cut the lead to 4-1. The Trojans left runners on first and third in the inning. Whitney put the game away in style with four runs in the sixth, all with two outs. Sidney Kleiner started the rally by beating out a ground ball to third. The Wildcats then scored on four consecutive hits, the first three which were nearly home runs, as Bri Seffens and Kaitlyn Johnson hit doubles to the fence before Im tripled off the top of the fence. Whitney's final run came on a single off of Steele's bat. "That's a big inning because Paratore is coming up fifth in the top of the seventh and you're trying to debate if you're going to have to walk her and then we score four runs," Whitney assistant coach Scott Seffens said. "Sydney hits a ground ball to third base and nobody thinks she's going to beat it out but she's fast and she does. Then Bri doubles, Kait doubles, Lulu triples and next thing you know we're thinking Paratore can't beat us now, someone else is going to have to beat us. That was good because that made it easier on us. We were facing a good pitcher. Last time we faced them we only scored one run off her." The Trojans (14-11) had a rough regular season, but as the No. 4 seed the Trojans made it as far as they were "supposed to" as they lost to top-seeded Whitney. "We knew we were going to have a tough game coming into it," Oak Ridge coach Katelin Eccles said. "Whitney is always a tough opponent. Our girls played tough, but sometimes things just don't go the way you hope and train for. "This season was filled with growth. The girls faced several tough challenges and still found a way to produce positive results and outcomes. I cannot speak highly enough about our three seniors, Brooklyn Paratore, Emery Glaser and Aly Watson. I cannot wait to watch them play at the next level. I was so lucky to have the opportunity to coach this amazing program and can't wait for the future."