Millie Lysne enjoys the grand view from the porch at her Valley View Drive home in John Day.

It took two years of hard work, but the Grant Union/Prairie City Lady Prospectors got the job done on Friday, capturing the Oregon Class 2A softball trophy that eluded their grasp last year. 

The 2022 edition of the Lady Pros was a juggernaut, steamrolling the competition to rack up 23 straight wins before finally suffering their first loss — in the last game of the regular season — to 4A La Grande. They gathered themselves up and charged into the postseason, scoring 34 runs and giving up just one in the first three rounds en route to the state title game, where they ran into a gritty Lakeview squad. Even though they had bested Lakeview twice during the regular season, this time the Lady Pros came up short, falling 5-3 in the championship.

While a second-place finish is nothing to be ashamed of, it was a bitter end to a brilliant season, an abrupt reversal of fortune that must have rankled Zach Williams’ squad. But it also appears to have stoked the team’s competitive fires. 

The Lady Pros came into this season like a team with something to prove, putting up an outstanding 22-3 regular-season record that included 15 shutout victories. They continued their dominance in the playoffs, notching wins of 15-0, 8-0 and 5-2 before defeating Weston-McEwen/Griswold by a 10-0 score in a mercy rule-shortened title game.

The Lady Prospectors’ state softball championship is a testament not only to the team’s hard work and athletic excellence, but also to the grit and resolve necessary to turn disappointment into determination and, ultimately, victory.

Take a bow, ladies. 

You can read Justin Davis’ account of the Lady Pros’ title game victory online here, or you can wait till Wednesday and read it in print. Also coming in this week’s paper are stories about a pair of confirmed wolf depredations in Grant County, the Life Flight evacuation of an injured motorcyclist, the future of the building destroyed in the April fire in downtown John Day, and the grand marshals of this year’s ’62 Days Parade.

And in case you missed it, last week’s Eagle featured a reminiscence of the late, great Ruth Harris, a beloved Grant County resident who died recently at the age of 95.

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— Bennett Hall, Editor