Softball Game Preview: Taft Wildcats vs. McFarland Cougars

For the second straight game, Taft will face off against McFarland. The Wildcats will look to defend their home field on Thursday against the Cougars at 6:00 p.m. Taft is strutting in with some hitting muscle as they've averaged 7.2 runs per game this season.

Taft not only won on Tuesday, but they posted their biggest win since March 20th (when they won 20-0). Everything went their way against McFarland as they made off with a 14-1 victory.

Juliana Edgar made a big impact while hitting and pitching. She looked comfortable on the mound, pitching five innings while giving up just one earned run off five hits. The dominant performance also gave her a new career-high in strikeouts (five). She was also big at the plate, going 1-for-2 with two runs.

Rylee Owens

Runs

04/29/25 @ McFarland	3
04/24/25 vs Shafter	1
04/22/25 @ Shafter	1
04/14/25 vs Porterville	2
04/12/25 vs Tulare Western	1
+ 7 more games

In other batting news, the team relied heavily on Rylee Owens, who went 2-for-3 with one home run, three runs, and four RBI. That's the most runs she has posted since back in March. Another player making a difference was Cierrah Franks, who went a perfect 3-for-3 with three runs, one stolen base, and one RBI.

Taft was getting hits left and right and finished the game having posted a batting average of .429. The team's really been improving in that area: they've now improved their batting average total in three consecutive contests.

McFarland is on a six-game losing streak that has dropped them down to 4-12. As for Taft, their win bumped their record up to 10-11.