Justin-Siena fights early, but errors come back to haunt them against Cardinal Newman
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Cardinal Newman of Santa Rosa is just a great school for athletics.
The Justin-Siena softball team found that out on Thursday when they lost to Cardinal Newman by a score of 15-3.
“It’s good to play an upper division four team like this,” Justin-Siena coach Tim Garcia said. “It gives us some kind of a target to see where we’re at once we get going in league.”
But the game was closer than the score appears.
In the second inning there was a bunch of scoring by both teams. In the top half Cardinal Newman’s Caroline Courier belted a solo home run to get her team on the board.
Then, in the bottom half of the inning the Braves (6-1) scored their only runs of the game. After reaching by way of a fielder’s choice, Eleanor Meyers scored on Noelle Wright’s single. Victoria Politz reached on a bunt single and Michelle Lozano walked and later came home on a Melissa Lozano double.
“I think we competed pretty well through three (innings),” Garcia explained of how his team played well for three innings. “In the fourth inning when you’ve got to get six outs it gets tough. A lot of damage they did to us was with two outs, and then for some reason we just couldn’t seem to hit the ball. We just kept popping up, couldn’t get anything through.”
From there on the Cardinals (3-1) poured it on as they scored 14 runs over the final four innings. They scored four in the third, two in the fourth, one in the sixth, and three in the seventh.
It also didn’t help that Justin-Siena had a hard time making plays and playing catch from the third inning on as they ended the game two errors, both of which were costly.
The game was started by Clare Garcia. Over 4+ innings she struck out three, while throwing 70 pitches. Garcia was charged with the loss.
Clare Halsey went the final 3+ innings and threw 65 total pitches.
Overall, the coach was pleased with how his pitchers performed on the day because the defense didn’t take care of them.
“When you’ve got to make six outs it’s tough to pitch when you’re having to throw that many pitches in an inning where you should’ve been out in three,” Garcia said of how the defense let his pitchers down.
Justin-Siena will be back in action when they host former league rival Drake-San Anselmo on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. In the first meeting of the home-and-home series the Braves won 18-11, but were trailing 9-2 at one point in the game.
