The beauty of sports is even after a tough week, there’s always the next opportunity.
Grand Oaks has a bye Tuesday with District 13-6A games at home against Willis on Friday and at Caney Creek Saturday afternoon.
Grand Oaks (13-5, 3-3) suffered back-to-back defeats last week to Conroe (2-1) and Oak Ridge (13-11), which saw the Grizzlies fall out of the top-four in the district standings for the first time this season.
Grand Oaks had a chance to win both games last week.
On Tuesday, Conroe scored both its runs in the top of the first and the pitching and defense didn’t allow anything else to the Tigers the rest of the day.
The Wednesday Oak Ridge game hurt at little more as the Grizzlies’ biggest rival rallied twice to tie the game in the final two innings before hitting a walk-off homer.
Grand Oaks had a huge day at the plate before the game ended. The Grizzlies totaled 16 hits with six players totaling two or more. Kaitlyn Torres had four hits while Ava Butler, Ella Brown and Larissa Taveres all homered.
By the time they hit the field Friday night, the Grizzlies will have had over a week to absorb and reflect on those games.
Willis (12-4, 3-3) is a huge matchup to start with. Both teams enter the week tied for fifth in the district standings. Willis had an up-and-down week as it handed New Caney its first district loss of the year, 11-0, on Tuesday and then were promptly shutout by Conroe, 3-0, on Wednesday.
The Wildkats are playing their best ball since the last week of February as they have won seven of nine.
The teams split their 2024 games with Grand Oaks winning 4-0 in February and Willis winning 7-0 in April. Both the Grizzlies and the Wildkats missed the playoffs.
Mayce Burkett homered and doubled in the April game.
Willis plays Oak Ridge Tuesday night.
About 16 hours later, Grand Oaks will make the short trek to Caney Creek (6-11, 2-3)
Caney Creek has won two of three (wins over Cleveland and College Park). The College Park win was particularly notable as the Panthers scored once in the sixth and a single by Cori White in the bottom of the seventh won it.
Grand Oaks dominated the Panthers last year with a 16-0 win in February and an 11-2 win in March.
Julia Veilleux and Torres each drove in two runs in the February game. Torres doubled and tripled while Veilleux, Brown and Arianna Sanchez all doubled.
Burkett and Sage Oglesby homered in the March game. Burkett also doubled and totaled three RBIs.
Grand Oaks is 4-0 all-time against Caney Creek and have outscored the Panthers 31-3.
Grand Oaks softball players are seen after on of its home runs against Oak Ridge last week. (Jose Palomo/SportCast Media)
