Lake Stevens senior Sarah Johnson has been touted as one of this season’s top softball pitchers in the Wesco League; after Wednesday’s match-up with the Vikings, the Mountlake Terrace Hawks may agree.

Johnson earned a complete game shutout victory for Lake Stevens by giving up just one hit, one base-on-balls and striking out 11 Hawks in a 3-0 Vikings win at Lake Stevens High School.

The only base hit Terrace could muster off Johnson was a two-out single by Laney Flynn in the sixth inning – unfortunately for the Hawks, Flynn was stranded at first base after Johnson was able to snatch a sharply-lined drive off the bat of Kennedy Cooper to end the inning.

Terrace coach Shannon Rasmussen was impressed with the Vikings hurler. “From what I’ve seen, that’s probably going to be the toughest (pitcher) we see all year,” she said. “I don’t think anyone’s going to be better than that.”

Johnson was able to baffle the Hawk hitters with her control, her ability to get pitches to dip, rise and curve and her fastball, Rasmussen explained.

“She’s got great command of all her pitches; she hits her spots,” Rasmussen said. “I know the girls talked about how she’s got movement. And she’s got the speed too.”

Rasmussen called facing Johnson “a challenge” for her squad, but she came out of the game upbeat. “I felt we had really good at-bats still,” he stated. “We saw a lot of pitches and we fouled off some really great pitches. We came up there and we battled.”

Rasmussen also like the effort she saw from her squad out in the field. Terrace pitchers Sarah Davis and Kierra Scott gave up three earned runs on seven hits and the defense committed just two errors – both in the sixth inning – neither of which led to any Viking runs.

“Defensively we made some really great plays,” Rasmussen said. “We had a couple of errors that didn’t really affect the outcome – just little things to cleanup.”

“I’d say for our first outing you can take a lot of positives out of it,” Rasmussen concluded.

The Hawks will return to action on Friday, March 14, when they travel to south Everett to face the Mariner Marauders. First pitch is slated for 4 p.m.

In other Terrace sports results from Wednesday, the Hawk boys golf team hosted their first dual match of the season at the Nile Golf and Country Club in Mountlake Terrace. Behind the twin six-over rounds of Bradley Wong and Edwin Snethen, the Shorewood Thunderbirds defeated the Hawks 224 to 286.

Prep Softball: Mountlake Terrace at Lake Stevens, March 14

Mountlake Terrace 0   0 0     0 0 0    0 — 0 1   2

Lake Stevens 0   0 2     0 1 0    x — 3 7   0

Winning pitcher: Sarah Johnson (Lake Stevens)

Losing pitcher: Sarah Davis (Mountlake Terrace)

Records: Mountlake Terrace 0-0 in 2A/3A Wesco League South Conference, 0-1 overall; Lake Stevens 0-0 in 4A Wesco League, 1-0 overall

Mountlake Terrace next game: versus Mariner, Friday, March 16, 4 p.m. at Mariner High School

Prep Boys Golf: Shorewood at Mountlake Terrace, March 14 (nine hole, par 34, Nile Golf and Country Club)

Shorewood 224 – Mountlake Terrace 286

Mountlake Terrace individual scores: Emmett Johnson 49, Morgan Subert 50, Eric Gallagher 58, Jack Ledford 61, Drew Daly 68

Shorewood individual scores: Bradley Wong 40, Edwin Snethen 40, Mitchell Hubbell 41, Erik Ertsgaard 50, Jordan Dunbar 53

Mountlake Terrace next match: versus Mariner, Snohomish, Wednesday, March 21, 3 p.m. at Snohomish Golf Course

–Story and photos by Doug Petrowski