Jillian Lee helping Cleveland softball to the top of the PIL standings

Published 10:22 pm Saturday, May 17, 2025

By Austin White

The Cleveland High School softball program has been building toward this moment.

After starting a group of mostly sophomores and freshmen last year, the 2025 Warriors are another year older and find themselves one win away from a PIL title at 12-5. Roosevelt leads at 13-4 and is Cleveland’s final opponent at 5 p.m. Tuesday, May 20 at the Roughriders.

Cleveland last won a league title in 2014, taking the 5A Special District 2 crown. The last PIL title came in 2001, a split with Franklin. And the last outright PIL crown for the Warriors was in 1994.

Getting to this opportunity has required some bumps along the way, but the Warriors have meshed as a unit and continue to play for one another in 2025.

“They’ve been playing together as a team, which is the main thing,” Cleveland head coach Richard Breece said. “Every one of them have the heart to play in the spot I ask them to. They’ve been playing tough for the last six games.”

Showing the most heart might be junior pitcher Jillian Lee after she dealt with some ongoing sickness to begin the 2025 season through the first couple of months.

Despite the issues, Lee has asserted herself as the best pitcher in the PIL this season, currently holding a 2.40 ERA with 141 strikeouts in 87.2 IP, both of which are easily leading the league.

“(Lee) has been healthy now and that’s a blessing,” Breece said. “We have some other pitchers too, but she wants to go all the way. I’ll ask her how she’s feeling, I’m letting her lead the way.”

Lee hasn’t just dominated in the circle either as she has been one of the steadiest bats all season for the Warriors.

She’s hitting .400 with 13 RBIs and 16 runs scored, providing the timely hits when needed or the speed to scoot around the base path.

“I’ve tried improving, for pitching, my spin and my movement pitches, I think that’s very important because speed isn’t everything when you’re a pitcher,” Lee said. “I’ve definitely improved as a hitter this season, just trying to find a way to help my team in all aspects of the game.”

Lee is far from alone on the offensive side where fellow junior Kailen Steffek has had another strong season, currently batting .408 with 18 RBIs and 19 runs scored.

Leading the team in RBI is Simone Chance with 26 of them, including a five-RBI day in Cleveland’s latest win, an 11-1 victory over Wells.

It’s a balanced lineup throughout for Cleveland with Clara Waldron batting .406, Sara Cass at .379, Vivian Schroedel at .367 and Anabelle Sahler at .400. Schroedel, a sophomore, is batting leadoff and also leads the team in runs scored with 29 and stolen bases with 10.

“I never feel like there’s a batter that goes where I don’t have 100% full confidence in them,” Lee said. “I feel like that’s very special about this team.”

It didn’t start out that way for the Warriors as they dropped all eight of their nonleague games in the beginning portion of the season.

But in the PIL, they’ve learned from their mistakes and have come together as a unit to win games going away, or pull out nail-biters like a 5-2 win over Lincoln on the road on May 13.

“I feel like we’ve really come together this year, last year I think we got down on ourselves a lot more during games,” Lee said. “But I think we’ve found a good way to pick each other up and shake off mistakes, even when the other team might score first. We have a way to come back and keep our heads in the game.”

They’ll need every bit of that resiliency for the matchup with Roosevelt to decide the PIL title. The two sides split their first two games with the Riders winning 12-6 at home on April 16 and the Warriors getting revenge 5-4 May 2 at home.

As a team, Cleveland is batting .352 compared to Roosevelt’s .351, and the Riders boast a PIL pitcher of the year candidate in Ruby Frish who’s sitting at a 3.72 ERA with 114 strikeouts in 120.1 IP.

It’ll be a heated battle in North Portland for the crown and a coveted home playoff game, but the Warriors believe they can get it done if they can keep those bats consistent.

“I think we really need to stay consistent, especially with our hitting because we have good defense and I know we can get it done on the defensive end,” Lee said. “The other team is gonna score a few runs and I think it’s just important we get out heads in it and get hot hitting early so we can keep ourselves in the game.”

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