By Caleb Knudsen
With winter sports barely in the rear-view mirror, here comes spring down the road to shift focus—to baseball, softball, badminton, swimming, boys tennis, and track and field.
Point of fact, several of these sports have already seen competition, starting in February for some, including the varsity baseball team. Their first two games were at Rec Park, making use of the diamond that’s been quiet for too long.
First game was Feb. 25, when they hosted St. Helena for the season opener. Neither team’s bats were on fire, with only three runs scored between the two. But St. Helena got three of them, and the Greyhounds only one.
Starter Alex Mauro-Manos ran out of magic when he allowed three runs, two of them earned, while getting only one out into the fifth. Damon Smith came in to relieve, but Healdsburg could only summon up a single bottom-of-the-seventh run to take the 3-1 loss.
Friday afternoon, Feb. 28, the Greyhounds had better luck, scoring consistently and holding Middletown to one hit in a 6-0 win. The heart of the lineup—Smith, Nova Perrill and Xander Harms—each got a double for half of the six hits logged. Henry Smith and Eric Neilson split pitching duties, and gave up only a single hit while striking out 12 between them to produce the shutout.
The Greyhounds take the bus to Credo High on Friday this week, then return to Rec Park on March 11 for a home game against Cloverdale; first pitch at 6:30pm.
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The girls softball team, too, began their season already, and shows no hesitation in scoring runs. Last Friday saw them take apart the Redwood Christian Eagles, 12-2, and on March 3 they were equally inhospitable to Justin-Siena, winning 17-4.
Already some familiar names are starting to emerge—Claire Berry tripled in the Feb. 28 game, and she, Izzy Osborn and Ashley Jenkins got one RBI each, while sophomore Hannah Levine-Smith got three.
Freshman Mia Halvorsen has been handling pitching duties, and appears to have the starting job locked down, going the distance in both the Redwood Christian and Justin-Siena games.
The game against the Braves was a chance to exercise skills, and the Greyhounds scored 3 in the first, 9 in the second and had run up a 17-0 lead at the end of four innings. That meant Justin-Siena needed to score eight runs in the fifth to take the game to its full seven innings. They only got four, so the game ended early.
Hannah Sellards was a highlight, scoring three runs and stealing two bases, while getting on base in all four of her plate appearances (one hit, two walks and a hit-by-pitch).
March 4 found the softball girls once again at the high school diamond (corner of University and Monte Vista) to host Willits. The game found the Greyhound girls pulling off a scrappy win, 11-1, by scoring three times in the bottom of the fifth. That makes three games ended early thanks to the 10-run “mercy rule.”
Next up is a Thursday game against Credo to end the week, followed by an away game in Sonoma Valley on March 10. On March 12, they return home to face Lower Lake.
