With the pending spring break for Healdsburg Unified School District schools—a half-day March 13, and no school again until March 23—one might presume there would be a break in sports action this month. One would be mistaken: Baseball and track and field athletes find time to compete during that spring break.
Several sports, including softball, swimming, badminton, boys golf and boys tennis, do take a break, but will resume competition soon thereafter. All have already begun their spring seasons, and we’ll do our best to cover them all.
Softball
A good place to start is the girls softball team whose coach, Brian Osborn, doubles as the school’s athletic director. Their record to date is 3-1, their only loss coming in the first game of the season, on March 2 against Clear Lake. It was a game where the active player roster for the Greyhounds was unpracticed due to the extended basketball season. So a number of softball regulars missed the first weeks of practice, including Claire Berry, Ashley Jenkins, Mia Halvorsen, Sammy White and Maya Sherman.
The Clear Lake game was a great way to start the season, nonetheless. Healdsburg pecked away to a 7-4 lead at the end of three, but in the sixth inning the Cardinals erupted for seven runs, and 11-7 is how it ended.
Halvorsen, only a sophomore this year, continued her duties as primary pitcher for the Lady Hounds, though she took her first loss this year in the Clear Lake game. Since then she has run her record to 3-1 as Healdsburg began scoring into double digits: 15-1 over Middleton, 30-12 over Justin-Sienna and 13-3 against Willits.
Halvorsen, who started nearly every game last year as a freshman, gets some backup this year from sophomore Lily Farrer, a new team member. Also on the roster is freshman Destiny Pace, who got five RBIs against Justin-Sienna on March 5.
Upcoming this week are back-to-back tests against usually strong softball squads: Sonoma Valley at HHS on Wednesday evening March 11 and Analy in Sebastopol the next day. Results of both games will be reported later.
“Yes, we are off to a good start,” Osborn said cautiously. One reason is surely that seven of the nine starters return from last year’s lineups and only three of them seniors: Izzy Osborn, Claire Berry and Ashley Jenkins. They are all expected to deliver culminating efforts to their Greyhound careers.
After spring break, the North Bay – Redwood season gets started with a road game against Montgomery on March 27, and at home the next day against St. Vincent.
Baseball
As good as the softball team has been to this point, the boys baseball team has been better, at least according to their undefeated 4-0 record. But it hasn’t been easy, and sometimes it’s been downright dramatic.
Take for instance the season’s first game, on Feb. 25 in Napa Valley. The team from St. Helena and the Healdsburg Greyhounds reached a zero state for eight innings, but in the ninth inning Healdsburg scored five runs. The Saints only managed a single run in the bottom of the extra-inning frame, which ended 5-1.
Two days later, for the first baseball game this year at Rec Park, Healdsburg kept up a steady stream of runs to take a 9-1 lead at the end of six. Middleton’s other two runs came in the top of the seventh and final inning, but it wasn’t nearly enough and the scoreboard read 9-3 as the sun went down on the game.
Things went even better for the battling Greyhounds on March 4 against Rohnert Park’s Credo, as the home team amassed a 19-3 lead after only four innings. Since the Credo Gryphons were unable to score in the top of the fifth, the game ended at that point as a mercy win for the Greyhounds.
Fans of competitive baseball were given something to appreciate on March 6, as the Kelseyville Knights took a 1-0 lead in the first inning that stood until the bottom of the 5th. Then the Greyhounds, their backs to the wall, cobbled together a two-run inning on the game’s only hit for Healdsburg, as Damon Smith singled in Xander Harms for the winning run. The 2-1 final score was the closest of the year for the surging Greyhounds, but there’s plenty of baseball yet to be played in 2026.
The March 11 game against Cloverdale was played too late to report; but the NBL – Redwood season for Healdsburg begins on Friday this week at Montgomery. Three non-league games at Rec Park follow next week, before the Redwood season resumes on March 25 against Analy.
