No. 1 Wildcats stand between softball and the postseason
- Catie Mohr, Sports Editor
- a few seconds ago
- 3 min read
After earning their first conference tournament appearance in a decade last season, Willamette softball now sits at No. 5 in the conference, one placement shy of the tournament. In their final series of the regular season they will face Linfield, who are No. 4 in the nation and knocked the Bearcats out of the 2024 tournament.
For sixth-year head coach Paige Hall, their approach to the formidable Wildcats is to try and take the pressure off the team: “I mean, we literally have nothing to lose. Anything right now is a positive outcome; anywhere we can go is up.”
Softball is a game of inches, but that’s not always true for the Bearcats — especially when compared to the Northwest Conference’s stiff competition. Alongside the Wildcats, the Lewis & Clark Pios sit at a solid 22-4 overall record. The George Fox Bruins swept Willamette at home in a four-game series in March. When the Bearcats faced Lewis & Clark in early March, they got swept largely thanks to an aggressive, suffocating Pios offense, who hit above .400 overall in two of four games during the series. As for Linfield, Willamette has not yet faced them this season, but the last time Willamette bested the Wildcats was in 2021 when they eked out a 7-6 win in the first of a four-game series — losing the other three.
Last year, the Bearcats found themselves in a similar position to where they are now, having finished No. 4 in the conference. They were swept by No. 1 Linfield and No. 2 Lewis & Clark in regular season play, but their season ended when they went on to lose 6-5 to Linfield and 2-0 to PLU in playoffs. 2024 marked a turning point for the team, though. An eight-game unbeaten streak on the back end of the season earned them their first conference tournament berth since 2014.
“Softball is a failure sport,” said Hall, herself a former pitcher for Oregon State. For her, overnight success just isn’t something that can happen in softball, so her challenge as a coach has been teaching the players how to concentrate on their own game: “That’s been our mantra for the year. Don’t worry about the outcome; just do what you can do,” she said.
For Hall, riding the momentum of their success is the key to building upon it. “Every year we’ve gotten better. Every year we’ve gotten more wins, and that’s all I can ever really ask for from the team.” There’s still a lot more work to be done, but improvements in team batting average and a current 6-game win streak coming off a sweep of the Boxers spell good news for the ʼCats as they prepare to take on the Wildcats. They’ve also brought their overall record to 20-14, up from 17-23 in ʼ24.
In Hall’s eyes, the most important thing to take from the season is how the Bearcats have learned to ride off their minute successes and continue improving, inch by inch, never slipping backwards or letting softball’s inevitable failures affect them. Ahead of their mid-April sweep of Pacific, Hall expressed,“We just want to build off of last year and not go backwards. Even if we make the conference tournament in the fourth spot again, that’s still okay with me, just making sure we’re not going backwards,” said Hall.
As it stands, the squad sits at No. 5, one placement shy of the tournament. Just ahead of them, Pacific Lutheran holds a 13-11 record. Willamette is 12-12.
The Bearcats will face off against No. 1 Linfield Wildcats away for the last regular season series May 3-4.