12-run second inning lifts Cascade past Blaze in finale

DURHAM, N.C. — Thursday brought the series finale between the Portland Cascade and Carolina Blaze. Carolina entered with a shot at a sweep, but the Cascade came away with a 12-4 run-rule win in five innings.

“It feels good,” Cascade head coach Tairia Flowers said. “We’ve been talking as a group of keep grinding, right? We’ve got the talent. We’ve been really focusing on the team culture, and their spirits have been high ’cause they know that we’re just that little step away from it. And you saw they just exploded with that excitement, and this is what they’re capable of, so it feels really good.”

Kenzie Brown made her first career start for the Cascade and pitched a five-inning complete game. She tallied five strikeouts, issued five walks and allowed four runs on four hits.

Jala Wright started on the mound for the Blaze and had a mixed opening. She put three Cascade runners on via walks but left them all stranded. Wright fanned Kenleigh Cahalan for her second strikeout of the inning to get out of the jam.

Brown placed two on via one-out walks in her opening frame, with a strikeout of Dakota Kennedy in between. The Blaze scored on a Cascade miscue for the first run of the game. Kayla Kowalik reached on a throwing error by Sis Bates at second, with two outs. That allowed Ana Gold to come in to take a 1-0 lead.

Wright’s command remained shaky to begin the second inning. After a leadoff walk to Kennedy Powell and a walk issued to Bates, Kendra Falby nailed an RBI single. That pushed Wright from the game, and Emma Lemley took the circle. Korbe Otis greeted her with an RBI single to score Bates, making it 2-1 Cascade.

Lemley, in a dangerous spot, issued an intentional walk to Megan Grant to load the bases with no outs. That set up Tori Vidales for a two-RBI double to center to extend the lead to 4-1. Lemley couldn’t find her command, and the Cascade loaded the bases again with a Sydney Stewart walk. Then, with one out, Cahalan recorded an RBI single to score Grant. That sparked the Blaze’s change to Keilani Ricketts.

 The Cascade had a good approach and hunted the pitch they wanted, and accepted what Carolina gave them. Powell recorded a one-out RBI single, and then Bates recorded an RBI via a hit by pitch. Falby followed with an RBI single to load the bases again. Then, Otis cleared them all with a grand slam for the Cascade’s 12th and final run of the inning. 

“It was awesome,” Otis said. “You go up there, you’re trying to put a good swing on a good pitch, so glad that happened for us.”

Outside of the walks that help set up situations, the Cascade were able to hit it where the Blaze weren’t.

“ Their balls were just finding some open spots,” Dill said. “On the pitching side, you know, just not being able to work ahead in the counts, and putting free passes on. That’s the name of the game, and they know that. You know, we’ll, we’ll talk about that. But it was just a tough combination of both of those in the same inning.” 

Carolina began a rally in the bottom half. It started with a Valerie Cagle single, followed by a McKenzie Clark walk and an Aleshia Ocasio single. Aubrey Leach followed with an RBI single up the middle, and then Clark scored on a Kennedy RBI fielder’s choice to trim the Cascade lead to 12-3.

Ricketts had a clean inning and retired the Cascade in order in the top of the third. Then, Brown followed with a two-strikeout inning and kept the Blaze off the board.

It was an efficient outing for Brown after she settled in. She had plenty of run support to allow her to pitch comfortably. The Blaze had a tough day putting together offense. Brown cruised through the fourth inning as well, which began with her fifth strikeout of the game.

“It took me a couple innings to kind of find my groove, but when your offense puts up 12 runs, it’s kind of easy to relax a little bit,” Brown said. “But yeah, I just feel really lucky to be here.”

Falby continued her solid day and improved to 3-for-3 with a leadoff single in the top of the fourth. But after making her way to third, she was left stranded.

Devyn Netz came on to pitch for the Blaze in the top of the fifth and struck out Stewart en route to a clean inning. Then, with a nine-run lead and a chance to close the door to salvage the series, Brown returned to the circle.

Kennedy led off with a double to the right-center field wall. After advancing to third, she came home via a Netz RBI sacrifice fly to make it 12-4. The Blaze battled at the plate to try to extend the game, but Brown finished the job and recorded her first career win.

“I liked that we were aggressive early,” Blaze head coach Kara Dill said afterward. “We scored a run, put a run on the board in the first inning. You take the second inning, a lot of free passes on our side, and then also just some balls falling in. Twelve runs on the board is tough to come back from. Just an unfortunate inning. 

“There was a lot of things that happened. What I loved was our response. We came right back and scored again. There were some good things in that, some good learning moments for us. As we are trying to build our chemistry, going through a little bit of adversity, especially early in the year is a good thing for us that we can learn from it and grow from it.”

The Blaze will return to Smith Family Stadium on Saturday at 12:00 p.m. EDT. They will host the Texas Volts, and the game will be televised on ESPN.