The Bandits (12-4) rolled their winning streak to the west coast, taking game one of a three-game series with the Cascade (11-5). Portland tried to ride the momentum of a late surge, but they couldn’t overcome the Chicago offense, which powered the team to a 8-6 victory.
“What an atmosphere, right?” Head Coach Shonda Stanton commented. “This is what you want, a championship atmosphere. There’s gotta be, what, 3,000 fans here? They were loud.”
The team opened things up with a five-spot in the first inning. Skylar Wallace led off with a double, and Mac Barbara followed suit with a two-bagger of her own to put the first run on the board. Morgan Zerkle and Taryn Kern both knocked two-run homers to bring the score to a quick 5-0.
They tacked on another run in the fourth, and Portland began to answer in the bottom of the inning with four runs.
Chicago kept adding insurance. Sami Williams flew out to score Kern in the sixth. Then Kern tripled in the seventh, scoring Bella Dayton, who reached on a double.
Kern ended the night 3-for-4 with a single, triple and her first professional home run. She had 3 RBIs.
“She has a grinder. She’s a worker. She’s very cerebral. She’s going to think about her swing. She’s worked really hard with Courtney [Martinez]. She stayed the course and that’s what you do. You stay ready and you make moments into memories. And it’s gonna be a great memory,” Stanton said of Kern’s breakout performance.
The win goes to Odicci Alexander for her 2.0 innings of work, and Kat Sandercock earned a save for closing it out with 1.1 innings and allowing one hit.
The series continues on Saturday at 2 p.m. PDT on CBS Sports Network
