Waiting game: Lady Braves sweep late arriving Orcas

Timing in life is everything.

And there was little time to waste on Friday for the La Conner High softball team, which made fast work of Orcas in a key doubleheader that got a late start due to a delayed ferry schedule.

The Lady Braves improved to 6-1 in NW2B action and 10-5 overall with a convincing sweep of the home twinbill.

La Conner, despite a shaky start, defeated Orcas 7-3 in the opener behind an eight-strikeout effort from junior hurler Olivia Hedlund.

The hosts followed up with a 9-1 triumph in the nightcap as Elizabeth Tripp singled and scored twice and drove in a pair of runs.

La Conner head coach Peg Seeling said her club, which faces a busy slate this week, was more than ready for Orcas.

Perhaps too ready.

That’s because the Lady Vikings didn’t show up on schedule due to a late ferry.

“We had a great week of practice going into our two games with Orcas,” Seeling said Sunday. “But the first game had a strange and slow start for us as we got warmed up, only to have Orcas not arrive on time. It’s the stuff we deal with when ferries are a factor.”

The delayed start seemed to affect Seeling’s charges, who had played near flawless defense in recent weeks.

The Lady Braves committed four errors in the early going of Friday’s first game.

Those miscues led to three Lady Viking runs — only one of which was earned — in the second inning.

“We finally got untracked in the next couple of innings,” Seeling noted.

They did so with their bats, punching across six markers on five hits in the decisive fifth stanza.

Hedlund did the rest. She repeatedly kept Orcas batters off-balance — and off base — pushing her season strikeout total to 77 in the process.

Hedlund helped her cause by going two-for-three at the plate with a run scored and an RBI.

First baseman Ashley Watkins plated two La Conner tallies with a pair of singles.

Chloe Fullington singled in two trips and drove home a run, and perhaps more important, put down a textbook squeeze bunt that Seeling said “really energized the team.”

Britteny Grossglass joined the Lady Brave hit parade with a single and run batted in.

La Conner took a different route to reach the same destination — the Winner’s Circle — in Game Two.

“We had a much better start,” Seeling said. “We scored seven runs in the first inning on seven hits and three walks.”

Kahneesha Casey yielded just two hits in four innings to pick up the win.

In addition to Tripp, Sarah McCormack reached Orcas pitching for two safeties and an RBI. Hedlund singled and drove in a run in her only plate appearance, while catcher Emma Christianson singled, scored once, and drove in a run.

Christianson’s work behind the plate was equally stellar, said Seeling.

“Emma continues to do a great job calling the game and running the defense from behind the dish,” she said.

Ironically, the second game went only four innings because Orcas needed to catch the ferry home.

La Conner, which hosted Darrington on Monday, was scheduled at Concrete Tuesday afternoon.

The Lady Braves visit non-league foe Sultan today, Wednesday, at 4 p.m., then entertain Darrington a second time this week with a 3 p.m. home start on Friday.

La Conner is at Coupeville May 19 before opening District Tournament play May 21 in Stanwood.