Lead-off hitter Claire Berry drew a walk to open the bottom of the fourth inning. Mia Halvorsen got on base when the Justin-Siena shortstop made an uncharacteristic error, then Ashley Jenkins walked to load the bases.
There was still no one out when sophomore outfielder Sammy White pulled a pitch from Lily Aguilera over the left-field fence, her second home run in as many games and the first grand slam of the Greyhounds season.
Two more runners got on base before freshman Destiny Pace slammed a liner to center for a double, but a bad ball thrown back to the infield led to first one, then another error, and three more runs—including Pace herself, completing what coach Brian Osborn called a “little league home run”—came home in the confusion.
But the seven runs scored in that dramatic half-inning brought the score only to 9-7, and proved to be the only offensive outburst the Hounds produced last Friday. Unfortunately the score had been pre-inoculated by a seven-run first inning from Justin-Siena, which gave them a lead they would not relinquish.
The 14-8 final score put an end to the Healdsburg softball season, but it did get a second-place pennant for the gym and a medallion for the players to celebrate their 2026 NCS season. Though the final was scored an “upset” because Healdsburg had been seeded #2 while Justin-Siena was seeded #7, coach Osborn was disappointed but not too surprised.
The Braves, after all, came in dead last in their Vine Valley league, with a 1-10 record; and the Hounds defeated them handily, 30-12, earlier in the season. “Don’t look at what record they have in the league,” said Osborn, who doubles as the school’s athletic director. “Look at the Vine Valley League and look at the teams that are in that league. Those are huge schools that they’re playing, and they get to play them all twice.” The Vine Valley schools are the regional powerhouses in many sports: American Canyon, Vintage, Napa, Petaluma and Sonoma Valley among them.
“They play really good teams, and they see really good pitching,” Osborn said. “When we faced them the first time, they were still trying to figure out who their pitcher was.”
Mia Halvorsen, Healdsburg’s workhorse pitcher, had just thrown seven winning innings against the Willits Wolverines on Wednesday; she was also on the mound when Justin and Healdsburg first met in March, nearly two months earlier. This time the Braves wasted little time getting to the pitcher, racking up 13 hits and 3 walks over Halvorsen, and scoring in five of seven innings.
Admitted Osborn, “We didn’t play our sharpest game of the year. If we played defense like we played against Willits, we’d win that game … You know if we play that team 10 times, we’d probably beat ’em five times.”
For three Healdsburg seniors, it marked their last game wearing the school colors. It’s no accident that Claire Berry, Izzy Osborn and Ashley Jenkins were contributors to the Lady Hounds success till the end. “You know, Izzy and Ashley and Claire as three seniors being your shortstop, second baseman and first base really keeps things pretty calm and pretty positive even when things might not be going perfect. Like it was on Friday,” Osborn said.
There’s no denying however the promising contributions of the younger players, especially the sophomores: pitchers Halvorsen and Lily Farrer, and infielders Sammy White and Kenidee Newman, are all only 10th graders, with two more full years of playing ball for Healdsburg.
Two days after the game, Osborn put it in perspective for himself and the team. “This team felt like they should have won that game; they had the skills to win that game and just came up short,” he said.
The athletic director drew a larger lesson. “It happens throughout sports. That’s why high school sports are a character-building venture. That’s why we offer so many things in high school. Not to get kids to be professional athletes, but to learn how to accept failure, to have a team and work through things and have success. Both sometimes—for yourself and sometimes your whole team,” he said. “And to cheer on others when they’re successful.
“That’s the whole philosophical point of this thing.”
