Vikings softball team advances

The Garfield-Palouse/Tekoa-Oakesdale softball team faced an elimination game at Dayton Tuesday night and came through with an 8-5 win to keep their season alive.

In a play-in game between the No. 5 seed Vikings and the No. 4 seed Dayton, the score was tied 3-3 in the fourth inning before Gar-Pal/T.O. went up 8-4 in the fifth and held the lead to win.

Four players had two hits each for the Vikings, including Alexa Lindgren, Lexi Rodriguez, McKenzie McLanahan and Kelsey Bielenberg.

Chandler Pfaff pitched the whole game, giving up one earned run on five hits, two walks with eight strikeouts.

The team now advances to play No. 1 seed DeSales at 3 p.m. Friday at Walla Walla to start the double-elimination 2B District 9 tournament.

Last year, the team’s season ended just short of it.

“Weather’s getting nice. Good time to be playing softball,” said Vikings coach Steve Witthuhn.