The pouring rain during the Yelm softball team’s last two home contests wasn’t enough to put out the Tornados’ offensive fire, as the team outscored the Olympia Bears and the Bethel Braves by a combined 38-7.
Prior to Yelm’s offensive explosion on Thursday, March 20, against Olympia, and on Monday, March 24, against Bethel, the Tornados would pick up their first South Puget Sound League victory in dramatic fashion over Graham-Kapowsin. As the Tuesday, March 18, matchup was tied at five apiece, Aliyah Congdon-Snyder said “no thanks” to extra innings and walked off the contest for Yelm with a game-winning RBI single. Yelm defeated G-K, 6-5, to pick up its first victory in the SPSL.
“The players do well when they are having fun, when they’re not up there overthinking things. They get in there, and they see the ball and hit the ball. Some of our batters are still trying to figure it out, but we’re coming around and gaining confidence,” head coach Lindsay Walton told the Nisqually Valley News following the victory over Bethel. “Whatever is happening to us is working. We’re having fun out here regardless of the weather, and we’re making those routine plays. It was nothing special today. We had a lot of good heads up baserunning on overthrows too. I’ve been really happy with everybody, and it doesn’t matter where I put them — they go there and they get the job done.”
Following the team’s 9-3 season-opening loss to non-conference opponent W.F. West, everything has seemed to go the way of the Tornados. Walton believes her team needed to get the early season jitters out of the way before things could start to click for her offense.
“When we started off on that Monday against W.F. West and lost to them 9-3, I felt like something was missing. It was our first game, and some of our girls were probably feeling those first-game jitters,” Walton said. “But we came out the next day against Graham-Kapowsin, and I’m not sure what it was, but things were clicking, and it’s continued to stay that way.”
After the team’s walk-off victory against the Eagles, Yelm turned its focus to the Olympia Bears for a Tuesday, March 20, home matchup. Behind infielder Austin Hitchner’s offensive performance, where she drove in four RBIs on two hits, the Tornados beat the Bears 8-4.
Pitcher Mallory Hoke got the start for the Tornados and allowed two earned runs and seven hits across five innings. She struck out seven batters and walked just one. Walton raved about Hoke and the Tornados pitching staff’s efficiency thus far.
“The girls are having fun. Our pitching staff is doing incredible. The rain doesn’t help, and it was pretty heavy today, but we’ve been throwing lots of strikes,” Walton said. “In our game against Olympia, Mallory only had one walk and it was against their number four hitter. The at-bat probably went for 12 pitches, and I thought that ball four was strike three. It was a battle. We couldn’t have asked for a better showing from our pitchers and hitters.”
One of the biggest differences Walton has noticed in her team from the 2024 season to the early 2025 season is the Tornados’ ability, so far, to drive in runners on base. She said the team had issues driving in runnings in scoring positions last season.
“The biggest thing is we’re getting people on base, and we’re scoring them. That’s one thing we weren’t able to do, and now we’re doing it in multiple games,” Walton said. “A good example of that is our G-K game. They would score, and we would answer back and score. It was a game where we had to continually answer back, and I think that’s one thing that led us to victory against G-K. They’re a good program.”
Yelm’s softball team hosted the Spanaway Lake Sentinels on Wednesday, March 26, but results were not available prior to the Nisqually Valley News going to publication.
The Tornados next matchups are set for 4 p.m. on Friday, March 28, against the Bonney Lake Panthers at home, and for 4 p.m. on Monday, March 31, against the Sumner Spartans at SHS.
