Baker teams fall 9-8 at Molalla after late rallies fade

Baker County’s two Molalla road games turned on the same problem: both teams scored enough to win, then could not close when the pressure peaked.

The Baker/Powder Valley/Pine Eagle softball team looked in control after a six-run fourth inning turned a 1-1 game into an 8-1 lead. Kate Nilsen, Reagan Ritter, Paityn Barr, Maylee Martin, Colbi Bachman and Macey Morgan all delivered hits in the rally, and Baker kept piling up contact for a 15-hit night. But the bats went quiet after that burst, and Molalla answered with two runs in the fourth, three in the fifth and four in the sixth to take the lead for good in a 9-8 loss.

Martin, Bachman, Morgan, Nilsen, Ritter and Barr each finished with multiple hits, a sign the offense had done its job early. Molalla, which improved to 7-4 and won for the third straight time at home, made the difference with the late rally Baker could not stop. The Bulldogs entered the game at 2-3 and left with consecutive losses, another reminder that producing runs and protecting a lead are not the same challenge.

The baseball Bulldogs faced the same test on the same field. Baker/Powder Valley entered at 2-3, Molalla at 4-4, and the Bulldogs turned an early 2-0 deficit into a 7-3 lead in the fifth. Jake McClaughry, Logan Crawford, Will O’Connell and Clay Stevens drove in runs, while Baker also scored on a wild pitch and a bases-loaded walk. Rayl supplied three hits and three RBIs, and O’Connell and Crawford each had two hits.

Then Molalla hit back with four runs in the fifth to tie the game. Baker briefly reclaimed the lead at 8-7, but Molalla answered again in the sixth and finished it on a walkoff fielder’s choice in the seventh, 9-8. MaxPreps said the Bulldogs had dropped two straight one-run games after that loss, and Baker later fell again at Gladstone, 12-11, extending a stretch of close calls.

Both games came on the first leg of a weekend road trip that continued to Gladstone the next day, and both were nonleague contests on the Oregon School Activities Association schedule. For Baker’s coaches, the lesson was immediate and blunt: the offense is doing enough to keep games alive, but the late innings still need to be cleaner before tight road games turn into a pattern.