EUGENE – Sandy Fischer can’t think of a reason why the players on the Ridgeview softball team spent so long (and so much money) collecting miniature rubber ducks after finishing their lunch at Track Town Pizza just a few hours before the Class 5A state championship game.

“I can’t explain it,” Fischer said.

And perhaps she doesn’t need to.

After all, the Ravens have been doing the unexplainable all spring long. Saturday night’s resounding 9-0 win over No. 2 Thurston in the sweltering heat to win the program’s second state title was just the latest, and ultimate, example of a team doing things that can’t be explained.

The team had a losing record a year ago and went one-and-done in the playoffs. It had a sophomore pitcher in the circle. There was not a player on the team who had a ton of high school experience. And coaches had to find athletic girls, without softball backgrounds, in gym classes and convince them to join the team.

“This is a really good team and I am going to miss so many girls,” said sophomore pitcher Brezlyn Hagemeister with tears swelling in her eyes. “It just feels so good to have accomplished this. Having one of the best seasons in Ridgeview softball history is really cool.”

The goal of a state title never really entered the realm of possibility at the start of the season. Winning the Intermountain Conference was seen as an achievable, yet challenging, goal. But the Ravens finished with an astonishing 27-1 record.

Fisher can’t find the reasoning behind her squad spending $27 to win the 27 ducks – which by complete coincidence happens to be the same number of wins the Ravens finished with this season – but the long-time coach who began coaching at Oklahoma State in 1979 and took over the Ridgeview job in 2013 knows good juju when she sees it.

“It is a big chemistry thing,” Fischer said. “If we had this group of athletes and they didn’t get along, this would not be happening. This team loves each other.”

What is easy is explaining how the Ravens took down the Colts at Jane Sanders Stadium. Ridgeview was more aggressive on the basepaths. The Ravens hit the ball hard – of the 10 hits, five of them went for extra bases – and they played more soundly in the field, committing only one error to Thurston’s five.

And they had a true difference-maker in the circle.

Hagemeister was simply dominant. She struck out the game’s first four batters she faced and finished with 11 total strikeouts in the win. Against a powerful Thurston lineup, the right-hander allowed just three hits and walked just three batters.

“Setting a tone as a pitcher is really important,” Hagemeister said. “I was just hitting the spots and working my pitches. I was just really fired up.”

The Ravens scored early and often. Sophomore pinch runner Caydence Marshall scored on a wild pitch in the first inning to give Ridgeview the early 1-0 advantage.

And as it would turn out, Ridgeview didn’t need any more runs, but it got plenty more anyway.

Ridgeview sent nine batters to the plate in the bottom of the second inning in large part to three Thurston errors in the field that led to four unearned Ravens’ runs.

After sophomore first baseman Kasidy Osborn and right fielder Bre Johnston scored on errors, the Ravens had three straight hits go for extra bases. Hagemeister brought home a run with a double, senior shortstop Brooklyn Lick tripled to bring home another run, then senior third baseman Anahi Ornelas-Diaz doubled to bring home Lick.

Suddenly, a 1-0 lead had ballooned to 5-0 in a matter of minutes.

“We were all very excited but at the same time we were telling ourselves it was a zero-zero game,” Lick said. “We still had to go out and play defense and put more runs up on the scoreboard.”

The Ravens took advantage of other teams fielding blunders all postseason. Of the three runs scored in a 3-0 quarterfinal win over Bend High, only one of the runs was earned. In the 6-2 semifinal win against Canby, again only one run was scored as an earned run.

And against Thurston under the bright lights of Jane Sanders stadium, five Colts’ errors led to six unearned runs.

Meanwhile Ridgeview rode a wave of relatively clean softball to a state title.

“We really tried to keep it one pitch at a time and stay in the moment,” Fischer said. “I know it is cliche, but it is true. We just chunk it down and keep it really simple.”

The Ravens added another run when Johnson scored on a sacrifice fly off the bat of junior left fielder Josie Hopper in the fifth inning. In the sixth inning, Osborn put the finishing touches on the state championship with a two-run double to make it a 9-0 game.

All that was left was for the Ravens to finish the job with three more outs.

Hagemeister struck out the final batter and Ridgeview earned its first softball state title since 2019.

“If you would have told us we would be here at the beginning of the season, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Lick said. “But we earned our way here and we deserved this title. We did it.”