SAND SPRINGS — Sand Springs is 11-2 overall and 2-1 in district play, with the Lady Sandites’ most recent stretch showing a pretty good snapshot of just how dangerous this team can be.
Two weeks ago, they handled Sapulpa 9-3 — district win.
Last week, they shut out Bartlesville 8-0 — district win.
Then Thursday, they went toe-to-toe with Yukon before falling 2-1 in extra innings.
Three very different games against three very different opponents, and in the middle of that stretch came the kind of performance that makes a softball team look particularly unpleasant to deal with if you are an opposing coach.
For four innings against Bartlesville, the Lady Sandites didn’t overwhelm anybody.
They simply waited. And waited. Then they pulled the pin on the fifth inning and it exploded.
Sand Springs broke open a one-run game with a five-run burst in the bottom of the fifth, then added two more in the sixth to finish off an 8-0 shutout behind Kylie King’s complete-game performance in the circle.
King allowed four hits and no runs, while the Sandite defense spent most of the night turning anything Bartlesville put in play into a short, frustrating walk back to the dugout.
Lady Sandite Bella Wilson provided most of the offensive firepower.
She went 3-for-3 with a walk, doubled, singled twice and drove in three runs.
But before Bella and the Bats arrived, King had to make sure Sand Springs had time to loosen them up.
Thanks to her, they did. Bartlesville opened the game with two harmless popups before Erin Bridendolph reached on a single. King promptly ended the inning. One stranded.
Three Lady Bruins came up in the second. Three Lady Bruins walked the walk of shame back to the dugout.
Groundout. Pop-up. Groundout.
Thank you for visiting our batters box, come back real soon.
The third inning produced Bartlesville’s first real piece of hard contact when Madie Nachbor doubled with two outs. It changed nothing. Lakelyn Harger fielded the next grounder at third and threw across to Lexi Penner. Inning over.
King wasn’t overpowering Bartlesville with theatrical fury. There were no pyrotechnics required. She simply kept throwing strikes, trusting the people behind her and clearing Bruins from the basepaths with the efficiency of a Wafflehouse table busser.
Sand Springs had already given King a one run cushion in the opener.
Bailey Copeland absorbed a pitch in the first, Sawyer Briscoe moved her up with a sacrifice bunt, and Wilson ripped a line-drive single into left.
Copeland scored.1-0. Then Sand Springs went quiet.
For a minute or so. Ava Pritchard singled in the second and stole second base, but the Sandites couldn't cash her in. Wilson worked a long walk in the third. Nothing came of that either. Bartlesville retired the side in order in the fourth.
And yet King just kept walking back into the circle and putting up zeroes.
A one-run lead can make a pitcher careful. King treated it like an eight-run lead that simply hadn't arrived yet.
Bartlesville put its leadoff hitter aboard in the fourth, which might have qualified as a promising development if Sand Springs hadn't immediately erased it with a double play as sweet as a scoop of Big Dipper lavender ice cream.
Briscoe fielded the burner at short and fed to Copeland at second, who relayed to Penner who finished it at first.
Two outs. One ball. No drama.
Bruin bats silenced. Again.
Then came the fifth. And if the first four innings were a softball game, the bottom of the fifth was a Sand Springs block party with Bartlesville involuntarily supplying the refreshments.
King started it herself with a line-drive single to left.
Courtesy runner Avery McGuire took over, stole second and moved to third on a passed ball.
Kam Lumsden walked. Copeland plunked down a sacrifice bunt, McGuire raced home and suddenly it was 2-0.
Nothing outrageous — yet. Just a little back pressure on a pitcher.
Then Briscoe singled to right and Lumsden scored.
3-0. Then Wilson singled to left. Runners at the corners.
Harger singled to right and Briscoe came home.
4-0. Runners at one and two.
Bartlesville finally recorded the second out.
Like that mattered. Carlee Brewer singled. Wilson scored. 5-0.
Pritchard singled. Harger scored. 6-0.
Five runs. Six hits. One long inning (if you are from Bartlesville).
A game that had spent nearly an hour balanced delicately on the railing between 1 and 0, had been shoved down the stairs.
This is what good softball teams do. They don't always score immediately.
They don't always bludgeon you from the opening pitch. Sometimes they just make you survive them.
King kept Bartlesville at zero long enough for the Sandite lineup to become inevitable.
And even after Sand Springs exploded on them in the fifth inning, Bartlesville finally mounted its best threat of the evening in the sixth.
Nachbor singled. Bridendolph singled.
Two runners on. One out. Maybe there was life yet. Nope. King coaxed a ground ball to Copeland for the second out. The runners advanced, putting Bruins at second and third.
Then Josie Childers hit another ground ball.
Briscoe scooped it at short. Throw to Penner. Three outs. Still zero. Because apparently zero was where King intended to leave them.
Sand Springs wasn't finished.
Copeland doubled with one out in the bottom of the sixth and Briscoe walked.
That brought Wilson back to the plate.
She had already singled twice.
So naturally, she doubled. Her drive to center brought Copeland and Briscoe home, stretching the lead to 8-0 and giving Wilson three RBIs for the night.
Bartlesville could probably be forgiven at that point for checking the parking lot to make sure the bus was out there, running. The A/C would feel good on the drive home.
Wilson finished 3-for-3 with a walk and three RBIs. Pritchard added two hits. Sand Springs piled up 10 hits as a team, with Briscoe, Harger, Brewer and Pritchard joining Wilson in driving home runs.
Then King went back to work one last time.
Fly ball. One out. Line drive. Two outs.
Fly ball. Game over. Seven innings. Four Bartlesville hits. No runs. Not one. An 8-0 Sand Springs victory.
And there is something particularly satisfying about the way the Lady Sandites won this one.
They didn't need everything to happen at once.
For four innings, they pitched.
They defended. They waited. Then, when Bartlesville gave them the smallest opening, Sand Springs got in a truck and drove it through.
The Bartlesville shutout sits right in the middle of a strong recent run: a 9-3 win over Sapulpa, the 8-0 blanking of the Bruins, then the 2-1 extra-inning loss to Yukon.
That loss may have interrupted the winning streak.
It did not change the message. Sand Springs can win with its pitcher.
It can win with its defense. It can win with its bats.
And when the lineup catches fire, it can turn a one-run game into a mercy mission in roughly the time it takes to finish a concessionstand pretzle.