PAWNEE— Pawnee’s season has not exactly been a leisurely stroll through the park.
The Lady Bears opened with three straight wins, then spent the middle of August discovering just how many different ways a softball game can turn irritating.
One-run losses. Two-run losses. A 12-2 thumping from Muskogee. A 7-6 loss to Morrison. A 3-2 loss to Bristow.
By Friday afternoon, Pawnee was 4-8 and probably getting a little tired of hearing that the next one would be different.
Then Sterling wandered into the neighborhood and Pawnee brought a baseball bat.
Pawnee exploded for 10 runs in the first inning and four more in the second, while Kamber Higgins spent the other half of the afternoon making sure Sterling had absolutely nothing resembling a comeback plan.
Final: Pawnee 14, Sterling 0.
Three innings. Good night. And if the Lady Bears were looking for something to convince themselves that the offense is still very much alive, they could probably stop looking.
It showed up all at once. Higgins started the bottom of the first with a hard single to left. Maddy Ives reached on an error, and suddenly Sterling pitcher Norah Eary was trying to work through traffic before she had recorded an out.
Then the game began coming apart at the seams.
A passed ball brought Higgins home with the first run. Ives stole home for another, and Braylynn Traster scored when Aeris Clark grounded out. That made it 3-0.
Pawnee was just clearing its throat. Preslie Heisler walked. Kensley Brown was hit by a pitch. Teagan Ready walked. Brooklyn Butler drew another walk to force Heisler home.
Then Higgins came back to the plate with the bases still busy and lined a single to center that scored Ready and Butler.
Six runs. Still not done. Ives followed with a single. Higgins stole second. Traster put a fly ball in play that Sterling failed to handle, allowing Ives and Higgins to score. Nine.
Heisler then doubled to center to bring Traster home. Ten runs in one inning.
At some point this stops being a rally and becomes an issue for the girl in the circle.
Sterling finally escaped, presumably checked that the inning had actually ended, then came to bat against the same woman who had already spent the first inning bothering them offensively.
That did not go especially well either. Higgins struck out the side in the second.
Then Pawnee went back to hitting. Ready and Jayiah Rice opened the bottom of the inning with singles. A passed ball eventually brought Ready home to make it 11-0.
Then Higgins stepped in again.
This time, singles felt insufficient. She drove a ball over the right-field fence for a two-run homer, scoring Rice and pushing the lead to 13-0.
Higgins finished 3-for-3 with four RBIs, including the home run, while also throwing three no-hit innings in the circle.
That is a pretty efficient afternoon. Pitch a no-hitter. Strike out six. Hit a home run. Drive in four. Be home in time for dinner.
Pawnee tacked on its final run when Ives singled, stole second, reached third as Traster got aboard on an error, then scored on Clark’s groundout. Fourteen. Boom.
Sterling’s offense, meanwhile, never got beyond the theoretical stage.
Higgins allowed only one baserunner via walk and struck out six over three innings. Sterling did not record a hit. Pawnee committed no errors.
That last part probably matters more than t he 14 runs.
Because Pawnee’s first 13 games have been uneven, but they haven’t all been bad.
The Lady Bears opened the season by pounding Olive 16-1, then beat Morrison 5-3 and Cleveland 7-1. They later beat Cleveland again, 7-2.
The problem has been everything between those victories.
Pawnee dropped a 7-6 game to Hominy, lost 2-1 to Oktaha, fell 5-3 to Sapulpa and 7-4 to Stroud. Morrison later returned the favor with another 7-6 game, this one going against Pawnee, and Bristow slipped past the Bears 3-2 earlier Friday.
That is a lot of close softball mixed with a few games everybody would probably prefer to leave buried in the GameChanger archive.
But the Sterling game offered something Pawnee badly needed.
Not merely a win. Evidence. Evidence that Higgins can dominate from the circle and the batter’s box. Evidence that Ives can create havoc on the bases.
Evidence that Pawnee can work counts, take walks, force mistakes and then punish those mistakes. And evidence that when the Lady Bears get rolling, things can get ugly in a hurry.
Pawnee is 5-8. Nobody is planning the championship parade.
But after Friday, there is at least reason to believe these Bears have teeth.
Sterling has the scars to prove it.