If not for an untimely pop up in the bottom of the fourth inning, Juanita’s Lisa Nelson might well have hit for the cycle on Wednesday.
The Juanita High softball team blew out Bellevue 19-2 in five innings at Juanita High School, the seventh-consecutive KingCo win for the Rebels (14-5 overall, 14-3) who sit locked in second in the league standings.
Nelson finished with a double, a triple and a three-run homer for six RBIs. She also pitched her sixth complete game of the year — the third following a long break during the month of April, going five innings with one hit, one earned run and eight strikeouts.
That fly ball in the fourth inning, though, kept Nelson from the first cycle of her career.
“I was [aware of it,] but I probably was a little too aware of it, which is probably why I kind of popped up,” she said.
Nelson and teammate Gianna Paribello were honored after the game on senior night. Nelson played on varsity as a freshman the first year after Juanita High switched from a three-year system to a four-year system, making her the first four-year varsity player in program history.
She’s the only player who has been around longer than head coach Traci Odegard, who arrived in 2014.
Unlike Nelson, Odegard wasn’t counting hits leading up to the fourth inning.
“That doesn’t surprise me, though,” Odegard said. “She’s been on fire, and it’s a great time to be.”
The Rebels hit three home runs on Wednesday: one from Nelson, a knock from Brynn Radke and a grand slam from Lexi Blackburn — her sixth homer of the season. All told, the Rebels have 17 home runs in 18 games.
“We’re working really hard hitting-wise, and it’s paying off,” Odegard said. “We’re just on a roll and we have this idea that if one starts hitting, we’re all going to start hitting. It just keeps falling. This is the best I’ve seen them hit all year, so we’re just going to keep going with it.”
Bellevue walked 13 batters, including three times walking Radke and Paribello.
Nelson’s only rough patch came in the top of the second. A walk, a hit batter and an error by Nelson loaded the bases, but Nelson responded by striking out two batters and giving her defense a line drive to first base while only giving up a single run.
With one game remaining in the regular season, on Friday, May 6 on Mercer Island, the Rebels don’t have a shot at catching Lake Washington for the No. 1 seed in the KingCo 3A tournament. Regardless of what happens on the final day, Juanita is scheduled to play the league’s No. 3 seed — most likely Bellevue again — at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 12 at Woodinville High School.
But according to Odegard, the seeding doesn’t matter.
“We’re not worried about standings or anything else,” she said. “We’re just playing our game, rolling into playoffs and keeping it going. We don’t focus much on the standings or stats, we just play together as a team and keep going.”
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect the day league championships begin, and the number of complete games pitched by Nelson.
